Jeremy Corbyn, Terrorism, and Tory Electioneering

In recent electioneering, the Conservatives have accused Jeremy Corbyn of a lack of patriotism for supporting the IRA during the years of the ‘Troubles’, during which the IRA were responsible for around 1,800 civilian and military deaths. Whether this attack on Corbyn is linked to the dip in Conservative support, only Central Office can say, but they certainly coincide.

The Conservative approach is to construct an image of Jeremy Corbyn as an ‘enemy of the people’, a man who hates his own country and sympathises with their enemies, an active supporter of terrorism. This is a powerful appeal to a brand of patriotic populism, part and parcel of an increasingly strident construction of national identity which casts Corbyn as the opposite of ‘British values’. Is this a fair portrayal? Is Jeremy Corbyn a threat to our nation, or is this a

false representation of a man whose thinking is beginning to chime with the public’s growing cynicism about their political leaders, hence the increasingly hysterical attacks on Corbyn?

Predictably, the Daily Mail portrayed Corbyn as ‘the terrorists friend…a shameless apologist for the world’s men of evil.’ The Mail goes on to describe Corbyn’s ‘support’ for a range of organisations, from Hamas and Hezbollah, to a host of ‘Marxist guerrillas’.

The government and their supporting press also castigated Corbyn for comments linking the West’s historical foreign policy to fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. From media outlets to government ministers, from Katie Hopkins to ‘horrified of Tunbridge Wells’, the same sentiments abound; how could Corbyn suggest that any aspect of foreign policy somehow justified the Manchester bomber’s murder of innocent children?

In truth, Corbyn did not say anything of the kind, he condemned the Manchester bomber in explicit terms. What he has said is that Western foreign policy has been a factor in radicalising individuals; on that point, he is in agreement with the ex-head of M15, who said that the invasion of Iraq "substantially" increased the terrorist threat to the UK.

Returning to accusations of his ‘support’ for the IRA, Corbyn said in a Sky News interview with Sophy Ridge, ‘I condemn all the bombings by the Loyalists and the IRA’. Indeed, Jeremy Corbyn has consistently condemned any use of violence in the pursuit of political goals. It is true that this has usually included condemning his own and other Western government’s use of military action, often in direct opposition to popular opinion and ‘patriotic’ feeling. For decades, Corbyn has repeatedly said, in seeking meaningful dialogue, one has to be prepared to talk to people with whom you disagree and even dislike.

In the same interview with Sophy Ridge, Corbyn drew attention to the fact the British government sought a military solution in Northern Ireland, one which, as Corbyn pointed out, ‘was clearly never going to work. Ask anyone in the British army at the time.’ On this point, Corbyn was undeniably correct, as demonstrated by subsequent events and a largely successful peace process based on dialogue.

The press pictured Corbyn with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams as proof of his complicity with terrorism, but failed to mention that this picture (below) was taken in the aftermath of the 1995 Downing Street Declaration and IRA ceasefire negotiated by the government themselves. This seems to be representative of a smear campaign aimed at scaring the public away from supporting Labour.

Of course, whilst Corbyn was talking openly to the IRA, the government was talking to them secretly, a fact also ignored by recent commentators. Dialogue was what Corbyn had been supporting all along, a tactic which ultimately led to peace. Whilst Conservatives castigate Corbyn for ‘supporting’ terrorists, one of their own previous councillors, Maria Gatland, was an actual member of the IRA who admits that ‘I agreed with the killing of British soldiers and believed the more who were killed the better’.

Corbyn has been accused of more than seeking peace, but wanting the IRA to ‘win…to beat the British government’. What does this actually mean? Does it mean that he actively supported para-military attacks on the British security forces and sought a military victory over them, as the Tory Maria Gatland did? Clearly not, as Corbyn repeatedly said, he did not think a military solution was viable in Northern Ireland, any more than he does in the Middle East. Did he sympathise with, even agree with, the general IRA/Sinn Fein political position, the desire for a united Ireland rather than one partly controlled by the British government? Well, probably yes. So, is this a problem?

Back in the day, to agree with a united Ireland was tantamount to actively supporting the IRA. I remember this period well. As a child brought up on military camps, from a family with a long tradition of military service, and having (briefly) served myself, the need to check under my car for bombs every time I drove it, reinforced the dangers posed by the IRA. To speak for a united Ireland was dangerously close to agreeing with the IRA and justifying their activities. The Conservatives and the right-wing press are playing on this

point, for an over-50 audience who remember IRA terrorism first-hand. The younger generation are less sure why these accusations are relevant so many years later, but they either won’t vote, or vote Labour. The Conservatives are less concerned therefore about their opinion and more concerned at securing the nationalistic and the middle-aged, middle-class voters they mainly represent.

I also remember as a young man, a statement made by John Major at the very beginning of the peace process, in which he stated that the goal of a united Ireland was a perfectly legitimate political aim. For the first time I realised the difference between a valid political goal, and the methods by which one sought the achievement of it. I and others may not have agreed with a united Ireland, but the desire to achieve it was a perfectly reasonable difference of opinion. It was the use of violence that was wrong, not the goal itself.

Ironically, Nelson Mandela and the ANC repeatedly refused to renounce violence as a political tool. Mandela remained in prison for longer than necessary as a result, and almost certainly delayed a peaceful settlement in doing so. Of course, Mandela and Gerry Adams are seen very differently, and rightly so, but clearly the picture is more nuanced than the press would suggest. Instead, the recent supporters of populist nationalism attempt to portray the world as a simplistic series of binary oppositions: right and wrong; good and bad; hero and villain; patriot and traitor; Conservative and Labour. Clearly the Conservatives are doing their best to co-opt this model to gain electoral support.

They have however, conveniently and disingenuously forgotten to mention the many acts of anti-Catholic Loyalist terrorist violence during the ‘Troubles’, and the complicity of the British intelligence services who actively and illegally supported Loyalist killings of Catholics. Such acts upped the ante and the numbers of tit-for-tat killings on both sides, delaying a peaceful settlement.

In hindsight, it seems that Jeremy Corbyn, however distasteful to a generation raised in the shadow of IRA terrorism, saw the bigger picture. Unless the goal of a united Ireland was publicly accepted as a legitimate political aim, an unsuccessful military campaign would, and did, continue unabated. Eventually, the government moved considerably further towards Corbyn’s position than in reverse, and peace ensued. This is not to suggest that Corbyn was the main architect of peace in Northern Ireland, but that he has been deliberately miscast as a terrorist-supporting villain as part of a Conservative re-election strategy. Today, it would be ridiculous to suggest that the political aim of a united Ireland is anything other than a mainstream viewpoint up for discussion and political settlement, as Corbyn thought decades ago.

Considering the global picture, Jeremy Corbyn was also ahead of popular opinion in realising that the exertion of Western military, economic, and political power was not always a force for good, motivated by the best of intentions. Corbyn has been consistent over decades, in pointing out that Western foreign policy and intervention in the Middle East has contributed to the problems the world faces today. To suggest that his contribution here is to claim justification for terrorist atrocities such as Manchester is not just malignantly untrue, it is a disgraceful deployment of electioneering propaganda.

Corbyn’s general point is beyond reproach. The history of the past century is one of unhelpful and self-serving Western intervention, often characterised by imperialism, colonial occupation, and the projection of economic and military hegemony. The West has picked sides and ignored grievances, sold weapons, secured oil, backed dictators, and then claimed the moral high ground when the same dictators need bringing to heel. Gadaffi and Saddam were Western darlings, armed, courted, and supported, until they rebelled with disastrous consequences.

In Iran in the 1950s, the US and the Britain facilitated a military coup which ousted a democratically elected government, because we thought those elected would be too pro-Soviet Union. Instead, we helped install the Shah and his brutal and murderous police-state. Opposition to the Shah raised the popularity of Ayatollah Khomeini and hastened his return from exile to found the anti-Western Islamic theocracy we face today.

The brand of fundamentalism represented by ISIS is nothing new, but the West turn a blind eye to the fact that their biggest allies in the Middle East and the home of Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia, have failed to confront domestic elements who represent the biggest supporters and funders of the Wahhabi movement. The Saudi kingdom dare not deal with the issue internally, and the West dare not disturb its oil supply and a ready market for billions in arms sales. Those weapons are used in military strikes which kill civilians in the Yemen for example, whom Western charities must then support, whilst the public point to the carnage as an example of inherent Middle Eastern violence and barbarity, whilst objecting to our continuing foreign aid budget.

The hypocrisy of the West generally, and Corbyn critics specifically, is frankly breath-taking.

Jeremy Corbyn has consistently, over decades, pointed out these difficult issues, to the distaste of politicians and a public who want to believe that we deploy our power only in the name of peace and democracy. I hold my hands up and admit that when Tony Blair said that Saddam was a threat to the West, I believed him. I believed that a British government would never say such a thing unless they were sure it was true. I still don’t believe that Blair actively lied, knowing it was untrue, simply that he chose to believe a narrative that suited him politically and ignored anything to the contrary. I think most of the country lost their innocent virginity over that one, but Corbyn’s eyes had been wide open a long time before then.

When the Conservative smear Corbyn, they not only commit an injustice, they try and restrict a genuine debate as to how we proceed in a world where I suspect we all realise, Britain has not been whiter than white. Do we continue to maintain that Britain and the West are the bringers of light and civilisation, or do we accept that our actions, however unintentional, have contributed to the instability and violence we are rightly trying to fight?

Do we support a man who has said this for decades and has always been prepared to be unpopular, or a party who have sought popularity over all things and continue to pander to populist nationalism?

Who indeed, is the true leader?