Corbyn: A Stain on Labour 

Jeremy Corbyn is often heralded by the far-left of Britain as a courageous anti-establishment hero. In reality, he is a deeply unserious man whose moral inconsistencies speak to his fundamental lack of character. Following both a private and grammar school education,  Jeremy Corbyn first entered Westminster politics in 1983 winning the safe seat of Islington North. In the following four decades, Corbyn would demonstrate the futility of the career of a perpetual campaigner before (largely thanks to luck) becoming Party leader and leading the Party to its worst electoral defeat since the Second World War. In this article, I will examine various aspects of the maverick’s career and demonstrate both its futility and repugnance. 

Jeremy Corbyn’s record on foreign policy has been in large part mortifying to those of us who hold the Western alliance and belief in democracy dear. Even before entering Parliament, Corbyn was disgracing himself by refusing to back the British troops in the Falklands War against the illegal and unprovoked Αrgentinian invasion. Ηe has been a consistent critic of NATO going as far as refusing to answer the question of whether, as Prime Minister, he would defend another NATO ally if they were attacked. This undermined the idea of collective security, an idea so championed by the 1945 Labour Government, and had he made it into power undoubtedly would have only emboldened the West’s enemies. He then went on to accuse the former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair of war crimes and failed to give him credit for the successful deployment of forces in Kosovo. While some may describe his foreign policy stances as principled, I would describe them as idealistic and at times anti-British. This is arguably best demonstrated by his consistent belief in unilateral nuclear disarmament which would decrease the UK’s standing in the world. I believe this is based on a hopelessly idealistic view of the world that if one nation gives up its bomb others shall follow.  This naïve approach to foreign policy and support of actions that would do such damage to the UK’s national security is a far cry from the bold actions of Ernst Bevan, and it is a disgrace that a man who held them reached the top of the Party who helped establish the principle of collective security in the West. 

They say you can tell a lot about a man by who he associates himself with, and if that is the case, then Jeremy Corbyn would fare terribly. Starting in the 1980s, when Corbyn held regular meetings with Gerry Adams during the Troubles, he has consistently surrounded himself with some of the most repugnant individuals and organisations on the planet. Mere weeks after the horrific terrorist attack in Brighton in 1984, Corbyn invited two convicted IRA volunteers into Parliament, a disgraceful move given that their organisation had tried to assassinate the democratically elected government of the UK. This links to a key theme with Corbyn, he prioritises the fight against the right above all else, even the defence of democracy and the democratic world. Later in his career, he talked about how he would welcome Hezbollah into Parliament despite their commitment to the destruction of Israel and their status as a proxy of the Iranian regime. Similarly, he described both Hezbollah and Hamas as his “friends”. He later came to regret these comments, however such a clear lack of judgment speaks volumes to his misguided worldview. This was only further demonstrated when he initially refused to call Hamas a terrorist organisation after the October 7th attack on Israel before later coming to this conclusion. His lack of judgment does not only apply to current organisations, however, but also to previous dictators. He has praised the records of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez and glossed over their human rights violations, once again demonstrating that his primary concern is with the success of the global left rather than the free world. 

We now turn to the issue of Corbyn’s leadership. Initially only possible due to the misguided attempts from the centre of the Party to broaden the debate, Corbyn’s unexpected rise to Labour leader in 2015 sent shockwaves through British politics. His first year became defined by the proposed referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. A long-time EU critic, Corbyn was broadly out of step with the Party on the issue. Having opposed Britain's entry to the European Economic Community and almost every subsequent European Union (EU) treaty, his conversion to remain in the referendum amounted to little more than a practicality given his political reality. The decision of the British people to leave the EU caused the first crisis in his leadership when he lost a vote of no confidence of Labour MPs decidedly. Rather than do the right thing in a parliamentary system and step down, he decided to fight the leadership election and was victorious. This led to a ludicrous situation where the leadership of the Parliamentary Party was not supported by its backbenchers. He then faced a subsequent challenge in the form of the 2017 election. Despite dismal expectations, a combination of his populist rhetoric and Theresa May’s dire campaign led to better-than-expected results. While his sycophants hailed this as a great victory, he still failed to form a government and had no way of materially impacting the lives of those who claimed to champion. 

His second parliament as leader would prove to be even more disastrous than the first. In 2018, a particular low point came when Corbyn refused to condemn the Kremlin for using nerve agents on British soil. This was a deeply sad day in the history of the Labour Party when our leader refused to do the right thing and stand up for the sovereignty of our island and stand with the government against our enemies. The main issue of this Parliament, however, came in the form of Brexit. Here Corbyn was hopeless as he was unable to lead the Party to a coherent Brexit position and continuously changed his mind on what he wanted the outcome to be. He refused to attend cross-party talks unless no deal was taken off the table rather than taking the opportunity to make the best deal possible for the nation. This all culminated in the resignation of Theresa May and her replacement Boris Johnson taking a far more hardline approach to the issue of Brexit. After six more months of gridlock, Corbyn finally folded to Johnson’s request for an early General Election despite it being clear our Party was destined to lose it. Following a disastrous campaign plagued with accusations of antisemitism and lack of clarity on the key issue of the day, Corbyn achieved what his dear friend Michael Foot had decades earlier, a crushing Labour defeat and the election of a Tory government with a near unassailable majority. 

There is one issue I think it is worth delving into more detail about concerning Corbyn’s leadership, namely that of antisemitism. There is debate over the issue of antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn but what is undeniable is that it was a problem under his leadership. Widely criticised for attending events held by Paul Eisen (a known holocaust denier) Corbyn had often faced controversy over his relationship with the Jewish community. This only escalated under his leadership when numerous MPs such as Luciana Berger complained about the abuse they faced and the lack of support they received from the leadership. This culminated in one of the darkest periods for the Labour Party when it was the second Party, only after the British National Party, to be put under investigation by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. The report would find that there were serious failing by the leadership of the Party to tackle this issue during Corbyn’s tenure and that widespread change was needed. Corbyn’s response to this would mark the end of his career as a Labour politician as he insisted that the issue had been overblown and was thus swiftly removed from the Party for not taking this deeply troubling issue seriously. 

As we have seen throughout his career, Jeremy Corbyn has been far from the saint he is often painted to be. He has surrounded himself with some of the most distasteful individuals and organisations of the modern era and has frequently backed Britain’s enemies. His tenure as leader of the Labour Party was dismal, with widespread division within the Parliamentary Party, a toxic internal culture, and an ultimate electoral catastrophe. His persistent view that antisemitism was overblown put a nail in the coffin of his deeply unpleasant career as a Labour politician. While there is no doubt he is very popular in his constituency, having recently won re-election as an independent, the further he is away from the Labour Party the better. This should also herald a lesson to the current Labour Party, had previous leaders not tolerated his outlandish views and persistent disloyalty his disastrous tenure would have been avoided: we must not make the mistake with similar members of our current Parliamentary Party.  

Connor Summerell

Contributor

22nd January 2025