Labour's Kremlin friendly foreign policy

It was just a line, from remarks in the House of Commons, but it spoke volumes about what a Corbyn foreign policy would look like.

The Leader of the Opposition, responding to the Prime Minister on a meeting with European leaders about the Russian attack on the Ukrainian Navy in November, called for 'both sides to show restraint and de-escalate'. So far so familiar but as his hapless Shadow Foreign Minister Khalid Mahmood had done earlier – so we know it's not just a typo – Corbyn went further and attributed the 'both-side'ing to NATO. The defence organisation had said, according to Corbyn, that 'we need both sides to show restraint and de-escalate'.

Only NATO had not said this. The Guardian had lifted the 'both sides' comment by a NATO spokesperson out of context. Labour repeated it. Labour hadn't bothered to check or wonder about the lack of strong pushback from the Ukrainians, and others, if NATO had indeed made such a statement. What does it say that not a single person in the chain who would have read Corbyn's speech before it was delivered had any sense that NATO could not possibly have made such a statement?

The false statement about NATO went unremarked, even by Corbyn's Commons adversaries, familiar with his previous 'both sides' remarks, or those about Russia being 'provoked' by NATO 'expanding to Russia's borders'. Though his opponents may be less familiar with Corbyn's theory that Putin invaded Crimea because the Russian 'military-industrial complex' forced him to do it. Or alternately Corbyn's view that the war in Ukraine is about the arms manufacturers who really run NATO wanting a hi-tech war with Russia.

What I'm saying is, I can understand why elements of Corbyn's statement about Russia might have flown over people's heads but also why some unkind souls have taken to calling him 'Magic Grandpa'. There are weeds here, some of which I will be clambering through.

The Prime Minister had told the Commons that the European leaders' meeting decided to roll over sanctions against Russia. That was something Corbyn chose not to comment on, despite his previously stated aversion to sanctions on Russia. Nobody pressed him on that either, though, again, I can see why.

The thing is, Corbyn 'misspeaking' about NATO is not just another 'gotcha' or 'Corbyn being Corbyn' moment - the way that such incidents are usually viewed. It's yet another example of what is happening in plain sight but isn't, in my view, being understood or examined properly; namely, that Labour is quietly laying out a foreign policy that benefits the Kremlin.

The Dawn Sturgess problem

 

Just over a year ago, March 2018, Russia carried out a chemical weapon attack on UK soil, in Salisbury, Wiltshire. The attack was on a former Russian agent but the sole fatality was an English-woman, Dawn Sturgess. Partner Charlie Rowley had picked up a perfume bottle laced with the weapon. He offered it to her and it killed her, something he now has to live with alongside the physical damage done to him and all those who survived, including a policeman.

Jeremy Corbyn did not explicitly allow that the Kremlin carried out the Salisbury attack until his speech at the October 2018 Labour Party Conference. A few weeks earlier, when the UK government released a damning package of evidence that nailed the Kremlin he was still hedging his bets:

'There is clear evidence Russia has a case to answer and it has failed to do so and therefore we can draw no other conclusion that Russia has a direct or indirect responsibility.'

'Indirect responsibility' means that the weapon used in Salisbury – Novichok – that ended up killing a British citizen, somehow found its way to another actor and Russia was only 'responsible' because they lost the Novichok. Whoops.

This theory was the same one advanced by Labour Spokesperson Seumas Milne to the Commons Lobby journalists months earlier, right after the Skripals were hospitalised. Its sheer outrageousness led one wire service to break with convention and name Milne. Correctly, in my view, as people have a right to know the context – to know who is saying this. The Shadow Foreign Secretary and Shadow Defence Secretary then went on the 'mainstream media' to pretend that what Milne had just said was meaningless. But then 'Corbyn' repeated the theory in an authored comment piece in The Guardian.

An example of the memes about Salisbury which circulated widely on Corbyn supporting social media

It was one of 29 theories that the Kremlin, Kremlin-controlled media or Russian diplomats put forward. And it was one of the first theories they advanced, blaming Ukraine as the other actor; then the Czech Republic; Sweden; and finally the UK itself.

It was always a ludicrous theory with dubious sources. When 28 countries joined the UK in expelling Russian diplomats in April (including neutral Ireland and supposedly pro-Kremlin Hungary) The Economist's defence editor Shashank Joshi explained the reasons for their certainty:

The UK’s case is built on three other interlocking pieces of evidence.

First is the use of a military-grade nerve agent, originally developed by Moscow. That, as the Porton Down chief emphasised, is 'only within the capabilities of a state actor'.

Second, and beyond Porton Down’s remit, is evidence based on secret intelligence that Russia has manufactured and stockpiled small quantities of Novichok within the past decade, and investigated its use for assassination.

Third is the assessment, also informed by intelligence, that Russia has an active program of state-backed assassinations, views defectors as legitimate targets, and has passed laws to enable such action.

All of this constitutes evidence, some of which can be confirmed by independent third parties, such as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), at the UK’s invitation. (Regrettably, Russia itself has openly undermined the OPCW’s work in Syria, and has pre-emptively dismissed its work in Salisbury). Other elements, based on human sources or signals intelligence, cannot.

But the unprecedented international rejoinder to Russia – the largest collective expulsion of intelligence officers in history – demonstrates the strength of British claims. EU diplomats noted that Britain’s briefings, “including much that is not in the public domain”, were “extremely convincing” on Russian responsibility. It is reported that the UK divulged “unprecedented levels of intelligence”.

Labour had been briefed throughout on the progress of the Salisbury investigation. Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott had full security briefings. Prior to those Commons comments in September the Head of MI5 had reportedly offered a personal briefing to Corbyn and Milne, which they refused.

The idea that they 'just waited for the evidence' is a tidy myth. They were too busy putting up other lines of argument, such as Corbyn's demand that Russia receive a sample of the substance so Moscow could 'say categorically' if it was behind the attack.

After that mass expulsion of diplomats in April Corbyn said:

'If we are going to make a very, very clear assertion like that we have got to have the absolute evidence to do it.'

But they knew well before September that the evidence was in. The reality is that they gave up obfuscating only when it no longer became a defensible position and the whole thing became a massive joke.

Milne did brief the Lobby last September that it was definitely the Kremlin wot dunnit, but it was obvious to those closely following the process that this was solely because the British state had painted him, Seumas Milne, into a corner. And not for the first time. I've been told that when the Inquiry into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko came out in 2016 which effectively blamed Vladimir Putin, Milne had to be talked down from putting out a response which questioned the verdict.

No, the default position is to defend or make excuses for Russia. And the British people notice. Corbyn's personal ratings markedly dropped in April 2018 and have plummeted since. Some of this is to do with Brexit but some of it is also Salisbury and Russia's murder of Dawn Sturgess.

The promoting Russian propaganda problem

The Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, is not from Corbyn's wing of the Labour Party, but she has every interest in making like she is. The favourite of the bookies to succeed Corbyn, she's made a series of statements, such as this crass one about Corbyn and antisemitism, that play to the sensibilities of his most ardent supporters. Among them are a couple I'm going to highlight, which have perhaps coincidentally received an enthusiastic thumbs-up from the Kremlin's disinfo machine.

Thornberry promoted a conspiracist campaign led in the UK by Chris Williamson MP, furthered with the help of people like the notorious Kremlinophile American writer Max Blumenthal, about an organisation called the Integrity Initiative.

Thornberry's claim was that Integrity Initiative was set up to 'attack Corbyn'. It was based on three tweets by the Initiative to its 2000 followers – one of which was only retweeted because I did it. The claims were ludicrous but they would have pleased the conspiracist wing of Labour headed by Williamson, whose outlets include Novara Media, The Canary & The Sqwawkbox as well as large social media accounts such as Rachael Swindon. Although you could argue that Thornberry's comments in the Commons were normal knockabout politics – that was certainly how the Lobby seemed to receive them, including her nod to countering Russian disinformation – they did not suggest how Labour would do so better than the government. Nor did they – and this is what really showed up the reality of what she was doing – pick up on the many criticisms of the Initiative from those actively engaged in countering Russian disinfo. Instead they played to the crowd.

The campaign against the Initiative is based on an obvious attack by Russia which aims to establish a counter, 'I'm rubber you're glue', narrative that it's actually the West that's promoting disinformation. The subject of the attack is an organisation funded by government precisely to counter Russian disinformation. Something which a Labour government would supposedly support, surely?

Those central to the online promotion of the 'conspiracy' narrative, most of whom are also coincidentally truthers on Syria and on Salisbury, said that their real objection was that Integrity Initiative had 'contributed to narrowing the range of public discourse so as to marginalize reality-based evaluation of policy options for relations with Russia and evidence-based assessment of events in which Russian involvement is alleged.' In other words, 'why isn't Craig Murray on BBC Newsnight!'

The 'scandal' has been heavily promoted by Kremlin media and Russian diplomats. It's also circulated by people like Craig Murray, who promoted conspiracies about the Salisbury attack. It's still going.** None of this is a coincidence and it speaks volumes about Labour that Thornberry would lend weight to it.

Example two. Earlier Thornberry promotes another major Russian propaganda favourite.

In a statement about Syria to Parliament last September Thornberry said:

'Relying on so-called open-source intelligence provided by proscribed terrorist groups is not an acceptable alternative.'

Yet it is Syrian rescue workers, medics, human rights activists, and journalists - not terrorists - who have documented Assad regime atrocities, often at great personal risk. As Syria Solidarity UK pointed out.:

Today Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary @EmilyThornberry smeared them all as terrorists: “so-called open source intelligence provided by proscribed terrorist groups”

Among those smeared by Thornberry were the same White Helmets Syrian rescue workers who had been championed by the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox.

Bellingcat, the widely respected organisation who are most famous for using open source intelligence to name the Russian FSB attackers of Salisbury, offered to show Thornberry why 'it is one of the most powerful tools we have for investigating conflicts and abuses of power.' They didn't get a response.

As the writer Oz Katerji explained:

'Thornberry’s statement sends the message that our eyes and our ears are not to be trusted. That witnesses are not to be trusted. Putin’s propaganda has succeeded beyond expectations, to the extent that the shadow foreign secretary is putting out an official statement stating that the NGOs, medics, journalists, and human rights activists responsible for documenting the vast majority of open-source evidence are terrorists and are not to be trusted …The Kremlin has weaponised doubt, and by doing so it dehumanises the victims by treating them with contempt and suspicion, and it leads to the paralyses of any political, diplomatic or military response to the crisis … Labour’s foreign policy has a deep and troubling Russian propaganda problem.'

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt reportedly had to spell out to Donald Trump that in Syria it's the White Helmets that are the good guys, as 45 had 'heard otherwise'. In other words, the massive Russian infowar attack on Syrian civil rescuers had reached Trump. What do you think Emily Thornberry would have told 45 in this scenario?

The Milne and Murray problem

 

Acres of words have been printed about Seumas Milne, yet still no audio of his alleged "comedy Arabic accent" :(

I don't intend to add to all that save to point out one nugget, from winter 2015, missed at the time, which I think captures what we've known – oh boy have we known – since the very beginning. Namely that electing Corbyn, followed by Milne's subsequent appointment as Labour's Executive Director of Strategy and Communications, meant that the Stop The War Coalition (STWC) and their cheerleaders were now running the Labour Party, particularly its foreign policy.

Back then folks were busy establishing what's since become a veritable cottage industry of ploughing through the rich seam of history, recent and ancient, by, about or linked to Corbyn. Some of them went through the STWC archives. They found pieces such as an opus by Matt Carr which compared the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War to ISIS. Panic ensued, the gentlefolk of STWC were papped at the 2015 Xmas do and website cleansing followed (first of STWC's then of Corbyn's own website).

Here's what I wrote at the time:

An anonymous spokesperson for the Labour Party was quoted in several media articles saying that the piece "had been taken down because it did not reflect the organisation’s [STWC] views." That person then went on to defend STWC and claim that during the group's existence they had "repeatedly called it right."

Paul Waugh quoted a source, not named as such but presumably the same Labour one, saying about the Carr post: "This is the second time this has happened, it won't be happening again." (The 'first' time was their also taken down response to the Paris attacks that the French were “reaping the whirlwind of western support for extremist violence.”)

How the heck would that Labour source know that? STWC is not an affiliate of the party, by what possible method could the party enforce its will and hence make that promise?

Just before those frantic website deletions and promise making about what STWC would do Milne, a prominent ally of STWC working for a party leader who used to chair STWC, had contradicted a statement by then Labour Foreign Affairs Shadow Minister Catherine West about Labour consulting with Syrians (meaning British-Syrians opposed to Assad).

Milne said that yes, of course we will be consulting outside the party about Syria - with the STWC.

A year after bigging up STWC, in October 2016, as public concern about the plight of civilians in Syria mounted, Milne declared that “the focus on Russian atrocities or Syrian army atrocities I think sometimes diverts attention from other atrocities that are taking place.” That's typical arch sophist Milne as its technically true but that's not why he said it, especially not when he said it. He was deflecting attention from Russia. Again.

To quote the wonderful @DarthPutinKGB:

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, denies it’s a duck, demands you prove it's a duck, accuses you of being a duck, says your dog is a duck, that your friend's cat is a duck and that all 3 aforementioned 'ducks' are Russophobic ducks, it’s a Kremlin duck

My main point though is about another aspect to the in-plain-sight nature of what's going on, with both Milne and Andrew Murray and others.

Let's look at Murray, who was once defended with claims that he was a marginal figure. Remember that?

In 2014, with a promotional assist from STWC, he established a group called Solidarity with the Anti-fascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU). SARU supported the so-called 'People's Republics' in Eastern Ukraine, where open fascists operated unmolested, homosexuality was at that time illegal, child soldiers were deployed and aid agencies banned for ideological reasons. Whatayaknow  but the 'antifascist' communist nirvanas sold by Murray turned out to be totally, provably controlled by Russia.

Euromaidan activists helping rescue people from fire at Trade Union House in Odessa, May 2 2014. Pic vasaphotography.com

Murray promoted the 'Odessa Massacre' conspiracism, essentially that Ukrainian Eurofascists had murdered 44 people and the BBC won't tell you about it, over which Russia ran a massive international disinformation campaign. They toured an exhibition about it around the EU. He put the Kremlin's then prime propaganda theme on the cover of his book. And he defended Moscow from accusations that they were responsible for shooting down the Malaysian airliner MH17 over his 'People's Republics'. Murray's little group went on to smear the National Union of Mineworkers (yes, that NUM, this actually happened) as being 'pro-fascist' because of their solidarity work with their mining comrades in Ukraine.

Not only was Murray busy promoting Russian talking points he also promoted, despite warnings from the small Ukrainian left and some British lefties, a supposed Ukrainian leftist group called Borotba. The Morning Star hailed them as part of the “left-wing forces” fighting back against “the neo-Nazi juggernaut” and the “fascist-coup-installed President Poroshenko”. Whatayaknow but Borotba turned out to be fake communists working for Vladislav Surkov, aka the 'gray cardinal', aka 'Putin’s Rasputin', as Peter Pomerantsev called him.

A fake left party set up specifically to fool the rubes, and it worked.

Then there was the time he defended a far-right, Kremlin funded academic called Boris Kagarlitsky who STWC had given a platform to. Because he told them things they wanted to hear.  In 2016 this man who Murray had called a "Russian socialist" backed Donald Trump.

Then there's this tweet by Andrew Murray to Roman Noviskov, one of the former leaders of the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) in occupied Ukraine.

Murray has deleted his tweet.

Siri, define 'useful idiot'.

Remember Conservative Friends of Russia? It was a Russian influence operation a decade ago targeting the Tory Party that was exposed by reporting that led to the lobby group being closed down. George Osborne's involvement almost ended up losing him his job.

Russian influence operations in the UK are not just aimed at Tories. Obviously. Why would they be? From their perspective Corbyn could conceivably be in Number 10. Labour is currently providing Russia with rich potential ground in which to work. Of course it is. Murray and Milne demonstrably bring their milkshake to the yard whenever Moscow plays its music. There are numerous examples of how Russia's done it elsewhere, how it's got the left to do its bidding, and never mind that - cough - recent example closer to home. The idea that the UK Labour Party is somehow exempt is fanciful.

Corbyn told a Czechoslovakian 'diplomat' that he'd happily point out those in his circle who might be talking to MI5. Allegedly.

I know how even raising this 'rich potential ground', that a Kremlin friendly Labour foreign policy might be of active interest to the Kremlin, plays out. After all we live in a world where supposed Israeli influence on the UK Labour party is a thing and pretty damn likely Russian influence isn't even spoken of.

The Nicaragua and Venezuela problem

 

Great piece on where the 2019 revolution was born, the w/class barrio of San José de Cotiza in Caracas, home to the families of National Guard soldiers who rebelled on Monday, followed by their neighbours, followed by other barrios.https://t.co/ZRXd7zhwHq pic.twitter.com/bK8ezFEiaU

— Paul Canning (@pauloCanning) January 24, 2019

Venezuela and Nicaragua is not so much about Russia, though what Labour says or rather does not say about those two countries, whatayaknow, alarmingly echoes Russia. It's more about what I wrote about in 2017, 'what Venezuela tells us about Labour Party foreign policy', a piece that somehow managed to induce a word salad response from the London Venezuelan Embassy. That actually happened.

I explained how Labour was charting a policy course independent of what Latin American social democrats, Labour's supposed sister parties, were saying. For example how the statement put out in August 2017 by Shadow Foreign Minister Liz McInnes, presumably Milne's handiwork, did not question the legitimacy of Maduro's new replacement Constituent Assembly for Venezuela's opposition controlled Parliament, the National Assembly. A very basic division between Labour and social democrats, globally. This point was different to what, especially in August 2017, both the media and Corbyn's opponents were banging on about. They didn't examine Labour's official statements or what they said in Parliament, or even call for Corbyn to do something like ask Maduro to admit humanitarian aid,. They just wanted Corbyn to say 'I woz wrong'. They collectively missed what was actually happening.

Thornberry with Arreaza (centre)

Right after that, in November, Emily Thornberry had a meeting with the Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza. She didn't promote it. Interesting choice. I only found out because Chavista accounts in Venezuela were tweeting it.

Last month disputatious barrister Thornberry told Parliament that the real issue on Venezuela was Tory hypocrisy over Honduras. What she did not say in Parliament, nor in a speech in Belfast, was more important. She did not say that Labour supported the EU initiative on Venezuela created with the support of Latin American countries including Uruguay and Ecuador (both run by socialists). This aims to create the conditions for truly free and fair elections, it is not about false 'dialogue'. Thornberry, echoing the Morning Star and the letter to The Guardian signed by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Shadow Home Secretary DianeAbbott, nevertheless called for 'dialogue', presumably conjured up by the new hope, Mexico's AMLO. Only there has been nothing from any efforts by Mexico, or Bolivia for that matter. Zip, nada. Raising it is chaff based on no realistic, expert assessment of the situation. It is what the international Maduro defence team, Russia playing in right, do: talk meaningless words about 'dialogue'. Failing to even mention the EU on Venezuela is not just an error, it's a major policy alignment.

Thornberry's Deputy Liz McInnes followed this up with a speech to Parliament repeating Emily's main themes, minus Honduras but plus de Zayas.

de Zayas is the former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order. McInnes told the Commons that this 'UN expert' had called sanctions on Venezuela a 'war crime', a statement which drew an audible response. de Zayas and his 'war crimes' claim is a major theme of Chris Williamson's routine, whose Commons outing on Venezuela featuring de Zayas has been heavily promoted by Corbynite social media in marked contrast to Thornberry's effort in the very same Parliamentary session. Williamson appeared on TV numerous times spouting falsehoods about Venezuela. He's off the TV now because the party finally rebuked him, which kinda goes to show that they could have told him to stop earlier but chose not to.

The visit by 'UN expert' de Zayas to Caracas, on the basis on which he made his 'war crime' pronouncement, was the only one until this month that the Maduro regime had let in. Funny, that. de Zayas never visited any hospitals and instead put pictures, later deleted, on social media supposedly showing plenty, decrying the 'MSM narrative' of famine, and then held a press conference with the regime.

Contrast that with what's happening now to the technical mission sent by the UN High Commissioner for human rights, former socialist Chilean President Michele Bachelet:

This statement comes as the technical mission sent by the High Commissioner continues its work in the country since earlier this month, which has been marked by official efforts to limit access and cosmetically minimizing the problems, like the case of their visit to the Barquisimeto’s main hospital.

Bachelet addressed this issue right from the start: “It’s important that the team have completely unhindered access, with no reprisals against any person who has met, or sought to meet, with them.“

de Zayas is a Holocaust denier and is a 'huge fan' of the German far-right party the AfD. He's reportedly worn blackface. He's currently saying that Venezuela's electricity blackouts are because of the gringos.

He's also being mentioned in a Parliamentary statement by the Labour Party.

Back in December Corbyn went to AMLO's inauguration in Mexico City and he was in heaven. He gave an interview, published by a left-wing Mexican newspaper, to someone I'm familiar with from Twitter interactions, Matt Kennard, someone whose TL is full of Charles Shoebridge, Craig Murray, Assange, and Greenwald.

Corbyn and Milne meet Evo Morales

A couple of things from the interview. There's no mention of Venezuela, this is pre-Guaido, when the Chavez supporting left's omerta still held, but much praise for President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who both Corbyn and Milne met with in Mexico - here's a picture of Milne filming the encounter.

Morales has never been touted by the Western left in the way that Chavez was, possibly because his 'socialism' was way too 'neoliberal'. It's always amused me how lefties grasping to defend Bolivarian socialism almost never mention Bolivia.

But Morales has taken a distinct turn against democracy in order to extend his rule. This appears not to bother Corbyn. Not in the slightest.

Somewhere else which Corbyn failed to mention to Kennard is Nicaragua. The country which Corbyn spoke about in the UK Parliament 210 times and has had not much to say about of late. One of the reasons for the rebellion in Nicaragua that started last April was austerity measures. Pensioners protested and pensioners got beaten for protesting. Then the people marched with the pensioners. Remember that when you hear people on the left talking about 'regime change'. People like Shadow Minister Dan Carden.

But mostly there's the silence. A couple of times I've heard Thornberry speak in Parliament and had occasion to yell 'but what about Nicaragua?!' as it somehow fails to elicit a mention in her roll call of countries of concern. Again.

This is policy happening here, in plain sight. How would a Corbyn government vote in the UN on Nicaragua? Alongside Russia?

We can make an informed guess because of the detail both of what's said and what isn't said. What's done and, as Chris Leslie MP said in Parliament, what's not done:

What can we do to influence and put pressure on the regime? Can we get the Russian Administration to do more, or the Chinese or the Cubans? Are there individuals who have a close relationship with Maduro, perhaps even the leader of the Labour party, who could at this stage pick up the telephone and implore him—beg him—to stop this appalling approach and to leave government immediately?

Francisco Toro makes much the same point about the power of criticism of Maduro coming from the left, citing this weeks' denunciation of Maduro by Michele Bachelet.

When criticism comes from the left, though, it’s different. It’s far harder for the regime to deny and obfuscate the words of Bachelet than those of Mike Pompeo. When someone with the democratic and leftist credentials of Bachelet speaks up against the now obvious human rights disaster unfolding in Venezuela, it matters. It matters to the regime, which is no longer able to hide behind generic allegations of a far-right conspiracy against it.

What this silence, absent issues and apparent alignment amounts to is policy, a distinct policy which places Labour alongside the remains of Podemos, Mélenchon and Syriza. Not alongside its sister social democrat parties in Spain or Portugal, or actually those in Venezuela itself for that matter. A clear signal that Labour in power would not be Scandi but would be far more aligned to Chris Williamson than whatever waffle it might write in any manifesto.

Here's a chaser on Thornberry's rote remarks about Maduro and human rights. Don't laugh.

A senior [Labour] source believes Thornberry … is not seen as a “team player” and this was “exacerbated” by her comments on Venezuela.

And a footnote. This rebuttal of criticism from the Hands Off Venezuela! crowd, who Labour are apparently on the side of, by the widely respected progressive organisation the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) is excellent.

We believe that flattening out Venezuela’s complex reality and instrumentalizing it as a chess piece in a political struggle against the Trump administration risks dehumanizing Venezuelans and desensitizing everyone to their situation.

Buy Corbyn, get Milne

 

Pic from 23 March People's Vote March by Carl Gardner

 
There's a reason why I haven't put a question mark after my title for this post. Because it's a statement of fact. I've not gone into Brexit and Labour's chimeric, Lexiteering, don't mention Russia behaviour. Nor how Thornberry somehow managed to promote Russia's Syria 'peace initiative' over the UN's before the Russians did. Nor the role of Russia in promoting antisemitism. Nor how the Corbyn team almost signed a Kremlin fan who makes George Galloway look tame but were scared off after pix surfaced of him repeatedly meeting Corbyn. I'm well aware I'm scraping the surface.

For some, such as those of us on the cheese and biscuit circuit, none of what I've written would come as much of a surprise. Heck, Chris Bryant reportedly once refused to become Shadow Defence Secretary over Corbyn’s stance on Russia. Remember that? People are well aware and working inside, folks! Don't panic! Milne's just one person!

When I raised issues with Corbyn and Ukraine in 2015 I got told not to worry, that McDonnell would sort it out. True story. This seems to be what many Corbynites still think about Labour foreign policy, it'll get sorted. But here's the thing, I just saw James Bloodworth refer to Labour having "a tepid social democratic agenda (see Labour’s 2017 manifesto)." Now I'm Twitter mates with James (for now) but I think him typing that is reflective of how much of what I call Tweetminster thinks, that Labour policy is actually pretty milquetoast. That the Russian stuff is just joke-worthy.

A few months back Ukraine announced that they would deny Andrew Murray a visa. They so had cause but on the BBC veteran comedy show Mock The Week the joke which channeled the zeitgeist was the fact that Murray had never visited Ukraine but they'd banned him! The joke was on Ukraine, not Labour. This followed all those jokes about Corbyn and the Czech spy and some stuff about a hat.

It suits some people to keep it as a joke and there seems to be an extreme reluctance to call a cigar/duck a cigar/duck.

But people putting 'Labour' into their trolley surely have a right to know they are buying a Kremlin duck. And do they?

Multiply and ochestrate this sort of thing times many thousands across social media once Labour's in actual power.

To all those now about to tweet 'but austerity', the people now running Labour have spent most of their lives focused on foreign policy. Especially those like Milne and Murray, who I know are widely despised on the left. Think on. I've joked about this but I can easily picture a very happy Milne swanning around the UN Security Council happily wielding his new power. I can also picture the effect of the alt-left and Corbynite social media policing a Corbyn led government's foreign policy. And I can also picture, in the shadows, the Kremlin itself, working away.

One of the first things any possible Corbyn government would do, from the evidence of the last four years, is realign the UK. Think of the Security Council votes on Venezuela or Crimea. Think of how our allies would react. Would people be voting for that? My sense is that the combined effect of Milne's sophistry and MSM bleurgh and opponents incompetence would make people think, if they thought anything, that they're voting for 'no more wars', not voting for being in Putin's pocket. Very quickly, an actual Corbyn government under the spotlight would be dominated by foreign policy. It just would. And some would love it. Surely all the Lexiteering has alerted people that maybe there are other priorities than austerity for some people? You'd think.

And I can practically hear the critics already, who will huff about All Those Times bad things were said from the top of the party about Russia. This is the coming rebuttal. I can sense it coming in my water.

Some of them will cry 'Magnitsky Act!', but oh that's such a good example that just ends up underlining my point further. It wasn't a front bench operation, it was backbench 'melt' Labour MPs operating cross party who drove its passage. Same as with the passage of controls on offshore banking in British overseas territories, which was led by Margaret Hodge. You can guess how much PR Labour and their social media A team gave Hodge for that. None of the Russian money connected issues have ever been a Labour PR priority save when they can be turned into either 'Labour's Magnitsky Act' or 'Russian Tory party donations' deflections, as happened (as I pointed out above) over Salisbury and will likely be the reaction of some to this piece.

In January I had an interesting interaction with Marcus Barnett, international officer of Young Labour and a Morning Star columnist. It was about Venezuela and those social democrats I mentioned earlier. Barnett said that he approved of "the NEC's [the Labour Party national executive body] current stance towards reviewing our relationship with non-SI [Socialist International] parties across the world, such as Podemos." (Podemos is the major Spanish leftist party.)

I responded:

Pleased to see you stating that Labour should align with Podemos, which means different EU Parl Group and all that means. Big proposal that, Marcus.

Barnett's thinking is the logical outcome for 'Europes biggest party', the jingoistic slogan Corbynite Labour quickly birthed back in 2016 that does a lot of bad things, including disappearing supposedly sister European parties with far bigger per capita memberships, and is still going, in one tweaked form or another. That outcome which Barnett wants and seems to have got is a UK Labour Party fundamentally realigned on foreign policy with consequences very few are even considering. But we live in a First-Past-The-Post system where a UK Podemos would normally not be an electoral winner. Anywhere else and a Podemos or a Syriza or a Die Linke would have to stand alongside a social democrat party asking for votes.

Here's the deal. We deserve to be better informed on actual Labour foreign policy, a, it's a fact, Kremlin friendly foreign policy, before we're asked to vote for it. I don't think people are informed, at all, though Salisbury certainly has made them wide open to considering the possibility. They're just not. I can see why - it's boring, no one cares, look at who's talking about it, that's a reach - but the idea that it's of no consequence is just plain wrong.

As Gordon Brown put it:

I have to say that if our [Labour's] global alliances are going to be alliances with Hezbollah and Hamas and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, there is absolutely no chance of building a world-wide alliance that can deal with poverty and inequality and climate change and financial instability, and we’ve got to face up to that fact.

Only in Brexit Britain would we end up possibly electing a UK Podemos called 'Labour' and then cry afterwards that this wasn't what we voted for. But that's exactly where we're heading.

Notes

 

** Disclosure: I am named in Integrity Initiative docs! And I am quote ready.

Here you go Tim, quote away. "To be named an 'influencer' by Integrity Initiative is truly a career highlight. If I'd gone back and told 11yo me that these many years later that something like this would have happened I would have scarce believed it." Got that? https://t.co/ZYwxNqBiqw

— Paul Canning (@pauloCanning) December 21, 2018

It was me that first spotted that Corbyn had spoken to a Lyndon LaRouche group when I first wrote about Corbyn and Ukraine/Russia in August 2015. And that was when the MI5 Soros @InitIntegrity scouts first recruited me ... https://t.co/Ru2zwvXsFE

— Paul Canning (@pauloCanning) February 13, 2019

See also: 

• Corbyn and Ukraine: it's not pretty
• Corbyn's election means Ukraine's stuffed
• Brown's right, Corbyn will 'ally' with Putin
• Does Corbyn back aid drops to starving Syrians?
• How Labour trashed Tatchell, not Assad
• Lindsey German is a thug, an accomplice
• Deselect Stop The War Coalition

• The Kremlin has weaponised doubt in Syria – and Labour is helping
• Labour and Assad
• Call to clarify Labour’s position on the Assad regime
• Just desserts: Syria activists hijack Labour Party fundraiser at swanky London restaurant with guerrilla protest
• Three reasons why Milne's appointment was wrong, wrong, wrong
• Stalinist Seumas’s (failed) attempt to take on Conquest 
• Seumas Milne: Enemy of the North African Left and Secularists
• I wanted to believe in Jeremy Corbyn. But I can't believe in Seumas Milne
• Andrew Murray — Some Background Information
• Starvation and Silence: The British Left and Moral Accountability for Venezuela
• We may never find out what Corbyn's position on Brexit is
• Projecting the Kremlin line
• Why isn’t there greater outrage about Russia’s involvement in Brexit?
• The real Stop the War
• Time for the left to join Michelle Bachelet in condemning Venezuela’s abuses
• The European parties accused of being influenced by Russia
• The dark side of 'socialism'

Many thanks to Susan Greenberg for her editing help. And for funding from George Soros and the international Zionist conspiracy 👍

Does Corbyn back aid drops to starving Syrians?

Today's protest of Jeremy Corbyn over Syria has drawn a lot of attention because of the presence of Peter Tatchell. This is a good thing when it highlights the issue - aid drops to civilians - but also a bad thing when Peter becomes the focus and not Syria. It is a good thing when Peter's presence draws more attention than one just by the organisers, the pressure group Syria Solidarity UK, would have done but a bad thing when reporting focuses on Peter and not the issue, which is Corbyn's failure over humanitarian protection and, most desperately now, aid drops.

It is also a problem when there is no context given to the coverage, which is the disquiet over Corbyn's leadership failure on Syria, particularly the breadth of that disquiet.

Members of the party who otherwise support Corbyn have been calling on him to speak out on protection of civilians in Syria for some time.

In October an open letter was published saying:

Dear Jeremy,

We write as members of the Labour Party and Momentum, as socialist activists, or as other supporters of your leadership of the Labour Party. We agree wholeheartedly with your opposition to militarism and nuclear weapons, and your call for an end to British arms exports to countries such as Saudi Arabia. Yet we are concerned by your silence – thus far – on the ongoing slaughter of civilians by Russian and Assad-regime forces in Syria.

Also in October Corbyn was protested over Syria, by Syrians, at a meeting of the Stop The War Coalition.

Protestor Oz Katerji wrote:

The late MP Jo Cox called for the Labour Party to support civilian protection measures in Syria; I call on Jeremy to listen to Jo and stop ignoring Syrian activists. The bloodshed in Syria cannot be stopped while continuing to refuse to hold Assad accountable for his crimes. We must act to protect civilians now, a sea-enforced deter and retaliate no-bombing zone would be a good place to start, as would aid drops to civilians starving under Assad’s brutal ‘submit or starve’ sieges.

Enough of the silence, enough of the complicity, it is time to act now to protect Syrian lives.

The response from Corbyn's spokesperson (almost certainly Seumas Milne) was:

The focus on Russian atrocities, or Syrian army atrocities, which is absolutely correct, I think sometimes diverts attention from other atrocities that have taken place.

Independent assessments are that there have been very large scale civilian casualties as a result of US-led coalition bombing and there are several cases of large numbers of civilian deaths in single attacks and there hasn’t been so much attention on those atrocities or those casualties.

Both the United States and Britain, the British Government, have been reluctant to accept any independent assessment of those.

That drew this comment from the husband of assassinated MP Jo Cox, who had chaired the all party parliamentary friends of Syria group:

This isn't just wrong, it's absolutely disgraceful.

Corbyn's Twitter feed has made no comment on Syria since a series of tweets around the parliamentary vote a year ago. Today's tweets about Human Rights Day mention Bahrain but not Syria.

Tatchell said today:

He’s made no statements as far as we know in solidarity with civil societies in Syria. He’s not listening to their demands, he’s not promoting their demands, which are very simple – a UN-supervised ceasefire, for the UN to supervise the evacuation of civilians to safe havens, and, most importantly right now, the airdrop of aid and medicine to besieged civilian populations.

Labour MPs, including the Shadow Foreign Secretary, have backed aid drops to civilians. But Corbyn has said nothing and his response to the protest today did not clarify whether he backs aid drops either.

He said:

Just to be absolutely clear, in response to the point that Peter made, Emily Thornberry on our behalf during foreign office questions and on many other occasions has made it absolutely clear that we do think that aid should be given to people in Aleppo, we do think that bombing should end, we do think there should be a ceasefire, we do think there should be a political solution, we do think the war should end in Syria, we are absolutely supporting the people.

The specific demands made to Corbyn today were:

• Support calls for humanitarian access to besieged areas in Syria. 

• Push for a parliamentary vote on unilateral UK aid drops. 

• Demand the suspension of Syria from the UN until it agrees to a ceasefire, and stops blocking aid to besieged areas. 

• Request UN supervised evacuations of the White Helmets and the civilian population.

Despite the claims by Momentum we are no clearer now as to whether he supports those specific proposals - and a journalist who can get a response from Corbyn's office should ask.

Given the response from his office in October and given the attitude of the Stop The War Coalition to aid drops then I can guess what they will say. But I want to see a headline saying 'Corbyn refuses to back food drops to starving Syrians' not multiple versions of 'Peter Tatchell disrupts Jeremy Corbyn speech with Syria protest'.

Someone needs to pin him down with specific questions that demand a specific answer. In other words, the next journalist up needs to do a version of "Did you threaten to overrule him?"

Edited to add: In case it is not clear why pinning Corbyn down on these specific four points from responses and Twitter conversations today it appears that some genuinely believe that Corbyn has supported aid drops. Or must have. Until a journalist gets his office on record rejecting these demands (and others, such as sanctions on Russia, as has also been pointed out) then he will continue to get away with waffle. Myself, Peter Tatchell, Syria Solidarity UK, we cannot get a comment from the Opposition Leader's Office - journalist's can.


See also:

• Deselect Stop The War Coalition
• Have Stop The War Coalition finally jumped the shark?

Most Libyans welcomed intervention

Benghazi, Libya, 2011

Last week the Guardian writer Patrick Kingsley published a series of tweets regarding the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee's (FASC) report on the 2011 Libyan intervention.

Kingsley showed that the conclusion widely reported in the media that the intervention was based on false information, that Gaddafi wasn’t a major threat to civilians in Benghazi, was itself false. Information supposedly from Amnesty International did not exist.

>Anyway, @pauloCanning has kindly Storified @PatrickKingsley's tweets on the FAC Libya report. Read em: https://t.co/uZLnV0uzfl

— Bob From Brockley (@bobfrombrockley) September 16, 2016

Idress Ahmed added that information supposedly from Human Rights Watch in the FASC report was also misrepresented.

The blogger Bob from Brockley pointed out that the Committee talked to no Libyans and that this is consistent behaviour by them.

"The MPs quoted a non-existent AI report second hand (via Patrick Cockburn) & pretended they were citing the original! Shameless," he tweeted.

Bob noted that "Cockburn has a track record of bring economical with the truth."

This is consistent with Stop the War Coalition (StWC), whose chief selling point has been its brand (who disagrees with 'stopping wars'?) - Never mind what that means.

We see this in patently ridiculous memes which blame Hilary Benn MP for the bombing of Aleppo.

Not talking to or allowing Syrians to speak is also consistent behaviour from the StWC, as I wrote about last year (and same applies with the FASC). This followed a StWC event at which Syrians were stopped from speaking but at which the FASC chair, the Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, who strongly supports the arms industry was an invited speaker.

One can understand, perhaps, why both Tories like Blunt and 'anti-imperialist' lefties want to shut out voices from those countries they claim to care about - because they won't like what they hear, as this post by al-Hamra, reblogged here, demonstrates. 

======

Anti-interventionists often cite the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 2011 air war in Libya in arguments over the Syrian civil war. What these opinionated partisans never mention is that NATO’s military action against the forces of dictator Moammar Ghadafi’s regime was not only popular with Libyans but overwhelmingly so.

A Gallup poll taken in 2012 found the following:

• 75% favored NATO’s actions in their country.
• 54% approved of U.S. leadership, which according to Gallup is the highest approval rating “ever recorded in the Middle East and North Africa region, outside of Israel.”
• 19% approved of Russia’s leadership (which opposed NATO’s attacks on Ghadafi’s forces).
• 22% approved of China’s leadership (which opposed NATO’s attacks on Ghadafi’s forces).
• 61% considered members of Ghadafi’s regime to be a major security threat.
• 62% considered Al-Qaeda and other Islamic militants to be a major security threat.
• 48% considered Western military forces to be a major threat.
• 77% favored Western military aid to their fledgling armed forces.
• 68% supported Western military trainers being sent to their country.
• 77% favored Western governance experts being sent to assist their new government.
• 56% opposed Western aid for Libyan political groups.

Gallup is a reputable polling organization and the sample size of 1,000 is the industry standard because sample sizes that large yield a low margin of error (for the math behind why that is the case, see this).

A second poll done by a similarly reputable British polling organization, Orb International, yielded similar results:

• 85% strongly supported NATO military action against Ghadafi.
• 89% expressed a favorable or very favorable view of the United Kingdom.
• 58% agreed that Libya and Britain should keep strong and close links with one another.
• 83% viewed then-Prime Minister David Cameron favorably.
• 76% agreed the country’s government should be chosen by the people in free, competitive elections.
• 68% considered the post-Ghadafi government — the National Transition Council — effective in helping to improve life Libya.

What becomes clear from these two polls is that not only was NATO’s military assistance in toppling Ghadafi overwhelmingly popular among Libyans, Libyans wanted continued intervention to help restore law and order after the chaos and upheaval brought about by the 2011 revolution. Although a near majority worried about unwanted Western military action in their country, more Libyans wanted closer and more harmonious economic, political, diplomatic, and military relations with Western governments.

This is not to suggest that everyone in Libya supported NATO’s intervention. The Ghadafi regime was opposed and organized rallies denouncing NATO’s interference with their counter-revolution. But after the regime was overthrown in 2011, these anti-NATO protests stopped.

No anti-intervention political parties formed after 2011 with enough popular support to win any elections. Pushed to the margins of Libyan politics by their unpopularity, Ghadafi loyalist tribes in Sirte joined Islamic State (ISIS) to continue their struggle against the new government and against Western intervention.

Openly acknowledging what Libyans thought about NATO’s intervention would put anti-interventionists in the awkward and arrogant position of asserting that they (non-Libyans) knew better than Libyans what was good for Libya in 2011.

Students of history will recognize this contradiction for what it is — the racist, colonialist White Man’s Burden, although couched in fiercely ‘anti-imperialist’ rhetoric. To avoid touching on this contradiction, anti-interventionists are forced to regard Libyans as passive victims to be pitied rather than politically active participants to be supported or engaged. For them, what matters in Libya is the West’s iniquity, not Libyan aspirations.

Hat tip Clay Claiborne
 

See also:

• Bob from Brockley: Assad v ISIS? Patrick Cockburn's economy with the truth
• Muhammad Idrees Ahmad: Who’s Lying About Syria’s Christian Massacre? 
• al-Hamra: Anti-War in Form, Pro-War in Essence 
• Bernard-Henri Lévy: Intervening in Libya in 2011 was the right thing to do
• Deselect Stop The War Coalition
• Have Stop The War Coalition finally jumped the shark?

When Stop The War directs kids to war, and other true tales

Book by STWC leader Andrew Murray. Cover picture shows the burning trade union building in Odessa "where 40 people died after supporters of the Kiev putsch government, Right Sektor activists and Chernomorets football ultras attacked."

The past two weeks has seen a unprecedented amount of attention on the Stop The War Coalition (STWC), because of their association with the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Endless press stories and media appearances for a leadership under siege.

The STWC response to the spotlight has been to label every criticism a 'smear' or a 'lie', however it has also been to engage in some tragic PR tactics. When the focus has shifted onto what they publish on their website the STWC response has been to start cleansing the website - and firing the poor Web Editor.

At the instigation of 'Soupy' a blog has been set up to cover what STWC are trying to hide or may be about to try to hide.

The Real Stop The War launched at the weekend and here is the content on Ukraine which I contributed.

When Stop The War directs kids to war

The STWC website has a number of posts about Ukraine,. The most egregious by far are by John Pilger.

Pilger methodically repeats a series of Kremlin war propaganda* memes: That the 2014 Revolution of Dignity was a fascist coup (see the response to this pap by Ukrainian socialists and anarchists I link to in my post on Corbyn's Ukraine fantasies); That there were pogroms against Russian speakers - a line lifted from Putin himself and a vicious fantasy.

The idea of NATO 'expanding Eastwards' and 'threatening Russia' - central to Pilger but also STWC more widely- not only ignores the agency of Eastern Europeans but also indulges one of the central myths used by Russia's imperial rulers to maintain their rule.

It's his post on the so-called 'Odessa massacre' that is the most dangerous. The violent events of May 2, 2014 were immediately seized on by Russia to paint Ukraine as fascist, Russia even toured exhibitions around Europe. Citizen investigations have shown that what happened was nothing like Russia says (and Pilger loyally repeats).

Among the mountain of falsehoods, Pilger includes the supposed eyewitness testimony of a doctor. This lie was very quickly debunked as Kremlin disinformation. There's a weasel note on the post, copied from The Guardian, which fails to say that this information has been proven false.

The May 2 events have been widely used as propaganda and have led to a number of left-wingers (including Brits) traveling to Ukraine to 'fight the fascists'. In reality they have arrived in 'Republics' where actual fascists wield power, anti-Semiticism is endemic, homosexuality is illegal as are free trade unions and humanitarian agencies are banned because they might 'foment counter-revolution'.

Those thug 'Republics' are backed by STWC leaders Lindsey German and Andrew Murray. They, along with Pilger, back war on 'fascist' Ukraine and could care less for the fate of any mugs encouraged by their website to participate.

*See this fantastic Lithuanian documentary for more on Russia's war propaganda machine (in English).



See Also:

• Deselect Stop The War Coalition
• Have Stop The War Coalition finally jumped the shark?
• Donbas can starve say 'rebel' leaders