Paris, the Stoppers and straight talking, honest politics

It was no surprise, naturally, when the Stop the War Coalition (or rather, Stop The Wars That I Say But Not The Other Ones) decided to blame the horrific bombings and shootings in Paris last Friday night on “Western intervention”.

But the first post which came out from this perennially dreadful crew was particularly crass, even by their own low standards. As people died on the streets of the French capital, the best they could come up with was: “Paris reaps whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in Middle East”. 

“Without decades of intervention by the US and its allies there would have been no ‘war on terror’ and no terrorist attacks in Paris.”

Yes, that’s right, it was all the fault of the evil West that the bombing happened. Victim-blaming at its best. Even though jihadist violence long predates Afghanistan and Iraq.

And then, as if by magic, it disappeared from the website, as did the tweet that accompanied it did from Twitter. Jeremy Corbyn then made an unusually measured statement condemning the atrocities, which did not even contain the traditional “but” we have come to expect from the Stoppers in such situations (i.e. it’s all terrible…but we deserved it):

“Today, all our thoughts and sympathy are with the people of Paris. 

“What took place in the French capital yesterday was horrific and immoral. 

“We stand in solidarity with the people of France – as with all victims of terror and violence.

“I have cancelled my engagements today to hold discussions on events in France with shadow cabinet colleagues and be briefed by Downing Street security officials. 

“It’s vital at a time of such tragedy and outrage not to be drawn into responses which feed a cycle of violence and hatred.

“We are proud to live in a multicultural and multi-faith society, and we stand for the unity of all communities.”

Almost sounds normal, doesn’t it?

The Stoppers themselves then came up with a much toned-down piece, which did still blame the attacks on “Western intervention”, but took five paragraphs to get there.

Why do the antics of the mad Stoppers matter to the Labour Party? I’ll tell you.

First because, until a couple of months ago, the chair of that august organisation was one Jeremy Corbyn MP. He is still closely associated with it in the minds of the media and the public. In short, the foreign policy of the Labour Party is, or at least soon will be, as the Corbynites consolidate their hold on party structures, the foreign policy of the Stop the War Coalition. That depressing and highly-damaging place is where the once-proud internationalism of Ernie Bevin has fallen to.

Second, and worse, because the Corbyn statement was not even honest. It was inherently disingenuous. It was “this is not what I think, but rather what I think I can get away with in the media”.

We know what Corbyn thinks: he has made it abundantly clear over his thirty-two years in Parliament. Because he was never a career politician and never remotely expected to lead his party, there are records of his words everywhere.

So, assuming he has not suddenly had a Damascene conversion to a moderate foreign policy in the last two months of those thirty-two years, it is pretty obvious that he has not said what he thinks, which is essentially what is written in the first post. It was the West’s fault.

Welcome to the Corbyn foreign policy era. 

“Straight talking, honest politics.”