The US-based Jacobin website has put out its analysis of the UK election remarkably swiftly. Shiraz wouldn’t agree with all of it (especially the praise for Corbyn’s simplistic ‘blow back’ linking of terrorism with foreign policy), but overall, it’s not bad:
I don’t care if he didn’t actually win — he won. Jeremy Corbyn has given us a blueprint to follow for years to come.
The Tories may still be in power at the end of the night, but Jeremy Corbyn won today.
Yes, I know this is shameless spin, but hear me out: the last few weeks have vindicated the approach of the Labour left and its international cothinkers under Corbyn.
This is the first election Labour has won seats in since 1997, and the party got its largest share of the vote since 2005 — all while closing a twenty-four point deficit. Since Corbyn assumed leadership in late 2015, he has survived attack after attack from his own party, culminating in a failed coup attempt against him. As Labour leader he was unable to rely on his parliamentary was unable to rely on his parliamentary colleagues or his party staff. The small team around him bombarded with hostile internal leaks and misinformation, and an unprecedented media smear campaign.
Every elite interest in the United Kingdom tried to knock down Jeremy Corbyn, but still he stands. He casts a longer shadow over his party’s centrists tonight than at any time since he was elected Labour leader.
Okay, Corbyn may not be prime minister tomorrow. He was a “flawed candidate,” he wasn’t the strongest speaker, he had his share of gaffes, he ate cold beans. All this is true. But besides for outside hostility and the opposition of his own parliamentary group, it’s worth remembering that Corbyn became Labour leader at the most perilous moment since the party’s birth.
Labour was discredited by the Blair-Brown administrations — from their catastrophic military adventures in Iraq to their privatization agenda at home and their overseeing of the financial crisis. The Blairites got their wish: Labour was looking more and more like a social liberal party than a social-democratic one, embracing the financial sector and prepared to “modernize” the welfare state by gutting it. But there was no serious challenge from its left, and there were professional-class voters to chase.
The party’s mass membership base deteriorated, as did its links with a weakened labor movement. Scotland was lost. The only anti-establishment voice in formerly Labour-dominated communities angry at years of neoliberal economic policies was the right-wing UK Independence Party.
This was the situation that Corbyn inherited. Yet against all odds, his team brought Labour back to life.
They rebuilt the party’s mass base, turning Labour into Europe’s largest party, with more than a half million members. Momentum, the grassroots formation created to support the effort, organized tens of thousands in communities across Britain. Battles with the Labour center and right helped in a certain way, too, distancing the leadership from a discredited establishment. Many party members came to embrace the ire of the billionaire press.
Labour developed a robust left character and platform for the first time in decades. Even as it dipped behind in the polls, it was forming the nucleus of a real opposition, a real alternative.
But even if we didn’t care about program and just wanted the Tories out, it’s hard to imagine that a rightward-tacking Labour leader would have done any better than Corbyn. Would Owen Smith have inspired the surge in youth turnout that pushed what should have been a Conservative landslide into a hung parliament? Would Angela Eagle or any “soft-left” challengers have kept Wales in Labour hands? Could any force but the Labour left begin to win back Scotland from the siren-call of the Scottish National Party?
Corbyn salvaged this election by bucking Labour’s conservative slide over the past several decades and sticking to his left-wing guns. His success provides a blueprint for what democratic socialists need to do in the years to come.
Labour’s surge confirms what the Left has long argued: people like a straightforward, honest defense of public goods. Labour’s manifesto was sweeping — its most socialist in decades. It was a straight-forward document, calling for nationalization of key utilities, access to education, housing, and health services for all, and measures to redistribute income from corporations and the rich to ordinary people.
£6.3 billion into primary schools, the protection of pensions, free tuition, public housing construction — it was clear what Labour would do for British workers. The plan was attacked in the press for its old-fashioned simplicity — “for the many, not the few” — but it resonated with popular desires, with a view of fairness that seemed elementary to millions.
The Labour left remembered that you don’t win by tacking to an imaginary center — you win by letting people know you feel their anger and giving them a constructive end to channel it towards. “We demand the full fruits of our labor,” the party’s election video said it all.
If the immediate economic program of Labour was inspiring, the leadership also revived a vision of social-democratic politics that looks beyond capitalism. The most striking thing about Corbynism isn’t that it’s run-of-the-mill welfare capitalism in an era where neoliberalism rules supreme, but that its protagonists see the inherent limits of reforms under capitalism and discuss ideas that aim to expand the scope of democracy and challenge capital’s ownership and control, not just its wealth. What other post-Golden Age, center-left party has drafted plans to expand the cooperative sector, create community-owned enterprises, and restore the state’s control of key sectors of the economy?
The plans were far from exhaustive, but they would put Britain on a course for deeper socialist transformations in the future. That’s a lofty dream, one that will take decades to come to fruition, but it goes far beyond traditional Labourism.
The Labour left isn’t a “mere social-democratic” current. Whereas what social democracy had morphed into by the postwar period often tried to tamp down class conflict in favor of tripartite arrangements with business, labor, and the state, the new social democracy of Corbyn was built on class antagonism and actively encourages movements from below.
But Labour couldn’t just put forward a pie-in-the-sky program. It had to deal with issues that socialists have typically not had to confront. And it succeeded by appealing to the commonsense of “the many” they sought to represent.
When the issue of terror and security was raised during the campaign, Corbyn showed not only that the Left was not weak on these issues — in many ways, we’re more credible than our opponents. For years, it’s been taken for granted that when it comes to terrorism, the choices confronting the Left were either sticking to our hallowed principles and suffering for it electorally, or mimicking the bellicose rhetoric of the Right.
Corbyn found another way through the madness. In the wake of the horrific Manchester and London attacks, the Labour leader was unafraid to connect British imperialism overseas and the proliferation of Islamist terror. Corbyn expanded his criticism into other aspects of British foreign policy: a deep-rooted set of alliances with Gulf States at the center of Middle East reaction.
Corbyn has taken some flak from the far left for his call for a proportional police response to terror. But he outlined a broad alternative, one that spoke of the social causes behind the path to terrorism, and used it to attack the violent xenophobia and scaremongering pushed by the Tories. In doing so, he changed the debate about terrorism in fundamental ways. There will always be alienated, angry people engaging in anti-social activity, but Corbyn offered a way to view such acts as security matters to be dealt with at their roots, rather than a clash of civilizations.
Let’s not underestimate voters. After years of endless wars and violence, most of them are ready for peace. Corbyn offered them what they wanted, and he wasn’t punished for it.
Even with a diminished Conservative majority, things won’t be rosy tomorrow. Momentarily humbled, the Tories still rule. Their allies in the business and media elites will regroup. They will come up with new plans to attack working people and the public good.
But Corbyn’s party is better positioned than any recent Labour regime to be a credible opposition rooted in an unapologetic left vision — to offer hopes and dreams to people, not just fear and diminished expectations. Also, Bernie would have won.
Our country, our future – ONLY Labour deserves YOUR Vote
On Thursday 8 June 2017, this country goes to the polls. This election will decide the future direction of our nations and regions for generations to come. Our jobs, homes, and living standards, our children’s education, our NHS, how we care for our vulnerable, and our place in the world will be all determined by the vote on 8 June. Never before has your vote mattered so much.
Unite believes that only the Labour party has the policies that will protect and advance the lives of ordinary people. Only Labour will invest in skills and training. Only Labour will build the homes so urgently needed. Only Labour can be trusted with our NHS and children’s education. Only Labour can make work in this country pay.
On Thursday 8 June 2017 only Labour deserves your VOTE.
Great reasons to Vote Labour
Unite’s members know that Conservative rule hurts working communities. We also know that under Labour, working people get ahead.
On 8 June, there are many great reasons to vote Labour. Here are just a few that will make a real difference to our members and their families.
1. Real investment in skills and training.
Labour will grow our economy, investing in skills and infrastructure through a national investment bank
2. Under Labour, work will pay
Labour will eradicate insecure zero hours contracts. Labour will ensure that nobody earns less than £10 per hour.
3. Only Labour can be trusted with our NHS
Labour will stop the pay cuts to NHS staff. No more will nurses be so poor that they turn to foodbanks. Labour will halt the cuts to A&E services.
4. A better chance of a better home
The average home to buy now costs almost 8 times the average salary. Only Labour will ensure that renting is affordable, and that one million new homes will be built, council and private, over the next five years.
5. The best education for ALL our children
Conservative plans for grammar and free schools are elitist and a waste of resources. Labour will stop the education cuts, keep class sizes under 30 and ensure our youngest children have a nutritious free school meal.
6. Public transport that supports our communities
Only Labour will end chaotic and costly rail privatisation and support communities to run their own bus services.
7. A stronger voice for YOU
Labour will modernise trade union laws and ensure that unions can negotiate collectively on behalf of some of the most vulnerable workers. Labour will remove the punishing Tory tribunal fees that have denied justice to so many at work.
8. A stronger Britain in the world
Labour will pursue the trading arrangements our economy needs – access to the single market, and barrier-free trade. Labour will honour the rights of the three million EU workers here already, and defend the rights of the million or so UK workers in the EU. Only Labour will target the bad bosses who exploit migrant workers, drive down wages and destroy community cohesion.
9. Affordable, responsible energy under Labour
Labour will invest in new forms of energy to tackle climate change, create the well-paid decent jobs of tomorrow – and keep energy bills low.
10. A fix for our broken economy
Under the Tories, UK living standards have slumped. Among EU economies, only Greece has suffered a harder hit. Labour will tackle the low wage, low skill economy the Tories have created, to build a stronger economy that works for the many, not the few.
On 8 June vote for the party that will build the best future for Unite’s members and their families.
The Manifesto
Post-election Labour will be confronted with choosing between two diametrically opposed futures: one road takes it back to some variant of New Labour while the other is the refounding Labour as a reformist party. Although which future will be determined by the forces each side can muster, the leverage open to either is in no small measure contingent on the election outcome.
Some three weeks ago the Tories held a 24% lead, Labour was heading for a defeat of 1931 proportions and the party’s right were ecstatic. Defeat on such a scale would see off Corbyn ensuring in short order the loss of a left majority on the National Executive, and the Party bureaucracy intensifying its purge against anyone seen as a danger to incumbent constituency parties and council leaders. This would clear the way for the Party to jettison its manifesto, replacing it with some pale blue austerity-light policies. The press and the right’s narrative to remove Corbyn would be straightforward enough: Labour’s defeat was a consequence of Corbyn’s divisive nature, his lack of leadership skills and a far-left manifesto which alienated the British public.
Even if Labour do badly, the cant the press spew out and the right’s attempt to unseat Corbyn will not have such purchase in the light of the way the election campaign has turned.
For sure the Tories have run a bad campaign by displaying May in all her pomp we have seen her for what she is: a third-rater. Of course the odium poured on Corbyn will have some effect but it will be limited because unlike May he is a known quantity. What has changed politics in the last 14 days has been Labour’s manifesto.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2015 defeat every commentator, pundit and pollster’s analysis of Labour’s chances in 2020 where at best bleak. The only route Labour could take in 2020 was to offer a social programme which appealed to the whole class rather than just the poor, and this is what we have seen with the present manifesto. It is its radicalism which has closed the gap with the Tories. Moreover it has provided a means for the young to begin to come out from under the dead weight of the old.
Labour’s social programme has largely thwarted the plan to ditch Corbyn, placing the left in a far better position to defend the leadership against attacks by the right. I also consider it has done more in the following sense: support for Corbyn comes from individuals whose lived experience of modern-day capitalism has led to a rejection of its inequalities. As such they are bound together negatively by what they are against. Outside of their rejection of inequality we find a cacophony of competing voices and no way of uniting them. The manifesto changed that and has provided the first substantial positive voice which the movement has been able to organise around. Moreover it provides us with the first important measure around which this melee of competing voices can begin to take on a coherent political shape through critique and debate around how the ideas in the manifesto can be developed.
Barring some unforeseen circumstance the election will have massively strengthen the left’s position made possible by the manifesto. Post June 8th the Corbyn movement can begin to reshape Labour into a reformist party. If this potential is realised and we witness the emergence of a reformist party it will be of historic importance and I think unique in character as rather than being based on the unions (the old Labour model) it will rest on an overtly pro-working class political programme. We are still a long way off from that, but far far nearer than it looked just a few weeks ago.
Momentum and the Party.
Only the membership can undertake such a transformation: the manifesto provides the positive statement for us to unite around, while the activity we need to undertake to transform the Party will develop us into a more ideologically coherent entity (but I hope a pluralistic one). This however will not happen spontaneously: the pivotal force to drive it forward can only be Momentum, supported where possible by union organisation. Of course my hope for Momentum to play such a role will be in vain if Lansman turns out to be as perfidious as some make out and is indeed a puppet of the Blairites (!).
Turning the party into a recognisable reformist party was always the only real goal open to the Corbynistas, yet much of the last two years has been wasted pretending they and indeed the Labour Party as a whole, could be something else. The idea of Momentum either as some embryo party or a left current which at some stage splits from Labour to form a new party, turns to dust when it is given a moments consideration. The relevance of Momentum is to change Labour and the relevance of the organised left is to take part in such a transformation not as a faction but a tendency.
In fact the tasks the left faced first faced in the aftermath of Corbyn’s victory are simply repeated post June 8th: defending Corbyn, becoming the catalyst to develop Labour’s social programme, winning positions for the left within the Party, turning the Party outward to campaigning, winning working class members to its banner, training Party members and at the centre carrying out the CLPD’s programme. It is only by organising around these specific tasks that the left will be transformed into an ideologically coherent entity and with it the Party.
… Well, he didn’t actually say “fuck off”, but that’s what he meant:
From The Independent:
The Mayor of London has “more important things to do” than respond to Donald Trump’s “ill-informed” commentary on Saturday night’s London Bridge terror attack, a spokesperson for the Mayor has said.
The US president had hit out at Sadiq Khan in the aftermath of the attack, taking a comment the Mayor had made about the increased police presence on London’s streets out of context.
But a spokesperson for the Mayor said Mr Khan would not be responding to Mr Trump’s comments.
“The Mayor is busy working with the police, emergency services, and the government to coordinate the response to this horrific and cowardly terrorist attack and provide leadership and reassurance to Londoners and visitors to our city,” the spokesperson [for Khan] said.
“He has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks urging Londoners not to be alarmed when they saw more police – including armed officers – on the streets.”
In a series of tweets posted in the aftermath of the attack Mr Trump appeared to take issue with the Mayor’s warning that that there was “no need to be alarmed” at the increased police presence on the street
“We must stop being politically correct and get down to the business of security for our people. If we don’t get smart it will only get worse,” the President tweeted.
“At least seven dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed’!” another of his tweets read.
Mr Khan had said: “Londoners will see increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. There’s no reason to be alarmed.”
The US President also commented on the fact that the attack did not feature firearms, in an apparent contribution to the US gun control debate.
Trump tweeted: “Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That’s because they used knives and a truck!”
Last night, as the news broke, Mr Trump used the atrocity to promote his travel ban against people from certain Muslim-majority countries.
This morning the Mayor of London issued a message of defiance in the face of terror, arguing that the general election should go ahead as planned on Thursday to show that Britain would never be “cowed” by terror.
“One of the great things about our way of life is our democracy,” he said.
“Elections are a wonderful thing and that’s one of the things that these terrorists hate and one of the things that we can do to show we’re not going to be cowed is by voting on Thursday and making sure that we understand the importance of our democracy, our civil liberties, and our human rights.”
Mr Trump’s intervention is the latest in a series of abrasive episodes between the US and UK following terror attacks on British soil. After the Westminster terror attack in March the US President’s son, who is named Donald Trump Jr, was called “disgraceful” after goading Mr Khan on social media and quoting him out of context.
Apparent Jihadist Terror Attack in London – Enough is Enough
Barely two weeks after Manchester, Quilliam’s thoughts are with friends and families of the fatalities and over 40 injured in yesterday’s barbaric terror attack at London Bridge and Borough Market. Details are continuing to emerge in what is the third terrorist attack in the UK in the last 73 days. This is a suspected jihadist terrorist attack. It fits an unfortunate pattern over recent years in Europe and especially the recent attack in London carried out by an Islamist terrorist. We are 8 days into the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and this is so far, the 7th jihadist terror attack globally. There is a difference between preventing a terrorist attack and stopping one. Quilliam calls on all politicians and citizens of the UK to fully support the government’s CONTEST Strategy and its four P’s – PROTECT, PREPARE, PURSUE and PREVENT. We call on whichever Government is elected in the upcoming General Election to make the urgent appointment of a Counter Extremism Coordinator serving under the Prime Minister to coordinate the government’s Counter Extremism Policy across all departments.
Quilliam Founder Maajid Nawaz said:
“Some politicians have called for the scrapping of the government’s counter-extremism Prevent policy. Scrapping Prevent is naïve, opportunistic and endangers our national security. Any politician that calls for this does not understand extremism, nor the severity of the jihadist terror threat that is facing us. Instead Prevent must benefit from a national counter extremism coordinator.”
Quilliam Chief Executive Haras Rafiq said:
“Enough is enough – we need action now and not tip-toeing around the issue. The only way to defeat this type of extremism and terrorism is for Government and all British communities to unashamedly name, shame and challenge the threat. That includes the ideology that is underpinning it. The ideology has its roots in Islamist inspired Salafi Jihadism and we must all admit the problem before we can attempt to challenge it”
JD adds: Haras Rafiq was on BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme this morning, and started to make the point about naming and shaming the ideology behind the attack, but the interviewer didn’t seem very interested and he was then stopped due to lack of time. Have a listen here (from 38.20) and see what you think.
Difficult to see why the SNP is proposing a “progressive alliance” with Labour.
SNP election leaflet, Airdrie and Shotts constituency:
Meantime, social media are highlighting the silence of the ‘left’ nationalists:
And the “All Under One Banner” super-size demonstration for Scottish independence appears to have opened up some rifts in the nationalist camp. (Stewart McDonald is an SNP (ex-)MP standing for re-election. Sandra White is an SNP MSP. I don’t know who Darini is.)
.
By Dale Street
When the SNP government’s record on the NHS was criticised by a nurse during the Scottish party leaders’ debate a fortnight ago, the response from the SNP and their followers was to vilify the nurse.
SNP MSP Jeane Freeman and SNP (ex-)MP Joanna Cherry led the charge, falsely claiming that the nurse was the wife of a Tory councillor. Once unleashed by Freeman and Cherry, the allegation was then taken up by other SNP parliamentarians and by SNP cybernats. In fact, they ratcheted up the smear campaign to the level of a frenzy, claiming that the nurse had been a BBC “plant” and that she was not actually a nurse. While her criticisms were ignored, the nurse herself became the target of systematic abuse and denunciation. But the nurse was a nurse. And she was not the wife of a Tory councillor. (Even if she had been – so what? Women won not just the right to vote but also the right to have their own political opinions a long time ago.) The SNP’s social media campaign of smear and vilification crumbled within a matter of hours. But not before it had demonstrated that Scottish “civic and joyous” nationalism is just as putrid as any other variant of nationalist ideology.
The SNP itself is the most undemocratic party in Britain. Policy adopted at its 2015 conference bans its elected parliamentarians from public criticism of any other parliamentarian, and from public criticism of SNP policy. The SNP’s intolerance of criticism by an NHS employee is emblematic of its intolerance of criticism in general. Substituting itself for the people which it claims to represent, the SNP responds to criticism of its record by denouncing critics for “talking Scotland down”. The SNP does not use rational political arguments to bond together its cult-followers. Instead, it specialises in emotional denunciations of its political opponents.
Thus, Labour are “Red Tories”, even as the SNP simultaneously proposes a “progressive alliance” with Labour, and also sits in coalition administrations with Labour in Scottish local authorities. And the Tories are defined as the party of the “Rape Clause”, even though the SNP ignored the “Rape Clause” until they found a role for it in their current election campaigning.
In 2017, as in 2015, the SNP claims that only SNP MPs will “stand up for Scotland” and “give Scotland a stronger voice” in Westminster. In fact, its MPs have consistently ignored the majority of the Scottish electorate, which remains hostile to independence and a second referendum. At Holyrood, where the SNP has now been in power for over a decade and has had a real opportunity to “stand up for Scotland”, it has made steady progress backwards. Cuts in council funding, declining literacy and numeracy standards, less teachers, less FE places and teachers, less working-class access to Higher Education, falling NHS standards, declining economic performance, and more child poverty. In fact, the SNP’s main achievement in recent years has been to revive the Scottish Tories’ electoral fortunes.
The polarisation of Scottish politics around the single issue of independence has allowed the Tories to rally support from “No” voters in the 2014 referendum. Through its sole official spokesperson (i.e. Nicola Sturgeon), in the six weeks since an election was called the SNP has bounced back and forth on whether the election results in Scotland should be interpreted as a mandate for a second independence referendum and for Scottish membership of the EU. But this is all a matter of political calculation.
To argue openly that the general election in Scotland is all about independence (and for the SNP, it is) would fuel the growing backlash against the SNP. To argue openly in favour of EU membership would alienate the one third of SNP voters who backed “Leave” in 2016.
Sturgeon has dismissed Corbyn as “unelectable” and as someone who “won’t be going anywhere near Downing Street.” As in 2015, the optimum outcome of the general election for the SNP would be either a Tory government or a minority Labour government. The former would allow the SNP to run with the theme that only independence could save Scotland from permanent and alien Tory rule, even though over a quarter of the Scottish electorate are now likely to vote Tory. The latter would allow the SNP, or so it hopes, to demand a second referendum in exchange for not bringing down the government, even though Corbyn has rightly ruled out any deals or alliances with the SNP.
Doorstep canvassing confirms that support for the SNP is in decline. In the time remaining before the general election, Labour canvassers need to push the SNP vote into further decline, and to make sure that the decline is to the benefit of Labour rather than the Tories.
As Jeremy Corbyn’s personal ratings improve, and the Maybot alienates viewers of Question Time with a wretched performance, the Tories and their media cheer-leaders fall back on the old accusation that Corbyn is ‘soft’ (or worse than ‘soft’) on terrorism … Clive Bradley analyses what Corbyn actually says:
“Jeremy Corbyn has said that terror attacks in Britain are our own fault,” claimed Theresa May last week. “I want to make something clear… there can never be an excuse for terrorism, there can be no excuse for what happened in Manchester.”
It is a measure of the cynicism — and desperation — of the Tories and their press that Corbyn’s speech on foreign policy last week has been attacked in this way. Corbyn did refer to British foreign policy as a factor in any explanation of terrorism, but only in similar terms to many commentators, and indeed some Tories. What Corbyn actually said was: “Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home.” He went on: “That assessment in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children. Those terrorists will forever be reviled and implacably held to account for their actions.” And he concluded: “But an informed understanding of the causes of terrorism is an essential part of an effective response that will protect the security of our people, that fights rather than fuels terrorism.” He summed it up — paraphrasing Blair: “Tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism.”
In truth his speech bent over backwards not to be construed in the way May and the Tory press then deliberately misconstrued it. More — it heaped praise not only the emergency services but on the military. This was a mild, even-handed intervention in the debate, only pointing to foreign policy as one factor in understanding terrorism. What of the argument itself, though? Is there a train of thought in Corbyn’s argument which does, as it is claimed, attempt to excuse the terrorists?
There are different “versions” of the “Blame Western Foreign Policy” argument. At its most primitive it implies that the terrorists act simply from a kind of Pavlovian reflex to various (especially) US-led policies, most obviously the war in Iraq. This, crudest, version plainly fails to explain much at all: most obviously, why the vast majority of Muslims, for instance, don’t, despite these foreign policy outrages, feel motivated to blow up teenagers; why often the terrorists aren’t personally from the countries affected (even in the Manchester case, it’s unclear if Salman Abedi’s action was specifically in reference to events in Libya); why the terrorists’ aims are so unspecific, even apolitical, but rather just an expression of general hatred of “the West” and a desire to inflame more hatred in response.
But there’s a much more cogent version of the argument, which is more what Corbyn seems to have had in mind. Islamic State/Daesh, for example, was formed in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. There were many aspects to Western policy which fuelled the growth of what was to become IS, principally the utter lack of any sort of plan for what would come after the fall of Saddam, the decision to destroy the bureaucracy of the Iraqi state, driving thousands of Sunni Arabs into the arms of the jihadists, and the decision to back a Shia-sectarian government which made this worse.
Libya, where Salman Abedi was born, was in some ways a repeat of the same thing on a smaller scale. In that case the UK and France (with considerable ambivalence on the part of the US under Obama) decided to overthrow the Gaddafi regime, co-opting some of the Islamist forces who had been in exile (some of whom, indeed, had fought, in the 1980s, against the USSR in Afghanistan), but with scarcely any notion at all of what might replace the dictatorship. The result is more or less a failed state: Libya is divided, battle-torn, and a long way indeed from democracy.
This process took longer than is sometimes implied. Democratic forces did counterbalance the Islamists for a while; and the IS- aligned forces in Libya are now on the retreat. What this suggests is that Western policy played a part in Salman Abedi’s decision to massacre some kids at a concert, but not in the obvious sense. Terrorism is not a knee-jerk reaction to Western wars, but it is something which can breed in the chaos fomented by the failures of Western policy. And of course the jihadi organisations (IS and al-Qaida and their affiliates) demagogically make use of any and every Western failure to recruit vulnerable, confused, or alienated young people.
To explain the growth of Islamism in Europe — either more broadly defined, or specifically the jihadi movements (the decisions by young people to go to Syria to fight, etc), one needs to look at more than “Western policy”. There are many factors at play. But for sure, as part of a wider, nuanced explanation, foreign policy, as Corbyn said, plays its part. To invoke it is not necessarily to relieve the terrorists themselves of responsibility for their own actions (and Corbyn’s speech could hardly have taken greater pains to avoid this error).
It is true that Stop the War, with which Corbyn has been personally associated, has denounced all Western wars in a very un-nuanced way. It is the opinion of this writer, for instance, that though the outcome of military intervention in Libya was predictable up to a point, at the time — March 2011 — the only real alternative was to allow Gaddafi to survive and immediately massacre his opponents. Moreover, the rebel movement was calling for intervention. The proper socialist response was not to march in opposition to military intervention — as Stop the War did, if ineffectually, but to support the revolution against Gaddafi and warn about likely future problems.
Still today, to reduce a critique of Western policy in Libya to the fact of intervention is to miss a lot of the point. Corbyn’s background in the Stop the War milieu will inform what he says now about terrorism and foreign policy. But what he has actually said is right, as far as it goes. And the Tories’ attempts to attack him for it should be denounced for the dishonest, demagogic scandal they are.
Colin Foster adds:
The origins of modern suicide bombing
Andy Burnham, now Labour mayor of Manchester, probably wanted to cover for his votes in favour of the invasion of Iraq. But, as it stood, his comment on 28 May was right: “Obviously, the actions of governments can then contribute and help the terrorists to add to their cause, but let’s remember that the appalling atrocity of 9/11 happened before interventions anywhere”.
Modern-era suicide bombing dates from the 1980s, not from 2003. There was an Islamist-terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Centre in 1993 as well as the one in 2001, and it was equally designed to kill everyone there, only it failed. US-led military actions in the years running up to 2003 — the Bosnia intervention in 1995, Kosova in 1999, or the USA’s aid to Islamist groups in Afghanistan — favoured Muslim forces against non-Muslim rivals or enemies, rather than the other way round. Between 1981 and 2016, 80% of suicide attacks and 73% of victims were in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Russia, or Sri Lanka — not in Europe or the USA. The big majority of victims of Islamist-terrorist attacks have been ordinary Muslims. (Source: University of Chicago database).
Analyst Riaz Hassan finds the following common features of suicide attacks: used by weaker groups in high-asymmetry conflicts; used only against (more-or-less) democracies; religion may not be invoked at all, but if it is, it is Islam. Attacks like the Manchester bombing are not inevitable or logical “blowback” from US or UK misdeeds. They have their own dynamic. We can best undercut them by rebuilding movements of social hope.
These articles also appear in the present issue of Solidarity and on the Workers Liberty website
Naz Shah was taunted with anti-Semitic abuse after defending the Jewish state, during a hustings in Bradford.
An audience member during the event appears to shout “Jew Jew Jew” at the Labour candidate for the Bradford West, after she reiterated her belief in Israel’s right to exist.
The MP, who is campaigning to retain the seat at the general election, was suspended by Labour last year for an anti-Semitic Facebook post. She has since apologised and been widely praised for her efforts to learn more about the Jewish community and Israel.
Shah said during the hustings, after being branded a ‘Zionist’ for her reformed views: “Do I believe in Israel’s right to exist? I continue to stand by my statement that I believe in Israel’s right to exist”.
#GE2017 – shareable GIFS
