David Cameron is right. The fight against Islamism is a generational struggle. This struggle will not be resolved under his tenure in office. When the Conservatives eventually leave office, the fight against Islamism will remain.
In reality, the fascists who committed the atrocities in Paris and Beirut last weekend will not be defeated by any partisan political response. Like the fight against climate change, or antibiotic resistance, the fight against Islamism will require different nations and differing cultures to bond together in a determination to prevail against probably the most grotesque affront to the world since Hitler and Stalin.
None of us – France, the United States Russia, Germany – want this fight, but this fight is no longer on our doorstep but over our collective threshold. We cannot deal with the world in the manner in which we would wish it to be, we can only deal with the world as we find it.
Regrettably, yet inexplicably, this is a lesson that the leader of the Labour party – one of the most important and influential jobs in European politics – must now learn.
Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the reported death of Mohammed Emwazi was not misreported. Jeremy’s expressed preference was for Emwazi to be subjected to a legal process rather than to have been killed by a drone strike. I agree with this, but given the impossibility of Emwazi’s extraction to facilitate such action, the strike was the correct course of action. Jeremy should have recognised this. He chose not to.
In the wake of the carnage in Paris, Jeremy wrote to François Hollande in seemingly unequivocal terms. He wrote:
I write to express my deepest sympathy for the families and friends of those killed and injured in yesterday’s horrific attacks in Paris, and our solidarity with the French people.
Our whole country is shocked and appalled by these sickening and unjustifiable attacks on innocent civilians.
And we stand united with your country in expressing our unequivocal condemnation of those involved in planning and carrying out these atrocities.
The shocking events in Paris are a reminder to all of the ever-present threat of terrorism and indiscriminate violence.
We will support every effort to bring to justice the perpetrators of these despicable acts.
An excellent letter from the leader of one of Europe’s leading democratic socialist parties to one of Europe’s few democratic socialist heads of state. I agreed with every word.
Regrettably, Jeremy then chose to unpick the content of his letter and the assurances given to Hollande within it, in media interviews over the days that followed. An excruciating 24 hours of shame and humiliation swirled around the party following Jeremy’s interview with Laura Kuenssberg in which he stated that he would be ‘not happy’ with British police or security services operating a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy in the event of a terror attack. This came a day after the Stop the War Coalition – until recently chaired by Jeremy – tweeted that the Paris attacks were ‘reaping the whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in the Middle East.’
At the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party the following day, Jeremy called the tweet ‘inappropriate’ but refused to condemn the group or the article when asked to do so.
It is not an attack on Jeremy to point to the obvious: that the assurances and sentiments sent to Hollande have not yet been matched by Jeremy’s words or actions. Indeed, when given the opportunity to make good upon the assurances, he has chosen not to. Solidarity with the people of France – morally and strategically the right course of action – must endure for longer than a single news cycle.
This means that British involvement in action against Daesh in Syria cannot be ruled out. Jeremy, however, does not agree. This is a position with which I disagree, but which I recognise as being one of profound principle (as is mine). Any action will be subsequent to a vote in the House of Commons and this – as a matter of conscience – should be a free vote. Jeremy, though, told Sky this week that, ‘I don’t think a free vote is something that we are offering’. This, in spite of knowing that there is a significant body of opinion within the PLP that is open-minded with regard to any proposals for intervention that the government might bring forward. The realpolitik of this for the Labour party, but more importantly for the country, is as stark as it is brutal.
For Britain to abrogate its global responsibilities with regard to concerted international action against Daesh would be morally wrong, serving to weaken us strategically in the process.
For the Labour leader to insist upon a whipped vote of conscience in the knowledge that such a move would be likely to precipitate a significant number of Labour members of parliament breaking the whip. Such a decision is less an attempt to prevent British intervention in Syria – such a matter will always be subject to individual conscience irrespective of the party whip – and more an attempt to manufacture an official Labour opposition within the Labour opposition. In short, a whipped vote on any potential involvement in Syria is a deliberate and calculated attempt to pick a fight. So acts of conscience and principle would be depicted as disloyalty and Momentum would be encouraged to go about its work of deselection.
In itself, such a move would be bad enough for the Labour party, but the clear elevation of party management above issues of the most acute national importance would be less easily understood, or forgiven, not only by millions of Labour voters, but by the British public.
All of which leads to a series of questions requiring urgent answers. What’s Labour about wanting Britain to vacate its global role? What’s Labour about seeking to stop the police and security services doing their job in the midst of a terrorist attack? What’s Labour about supporting organisations that believe that the murdered in the streets of Paris brought their fate upon themselves by dint of being born western? What’s Labour about refusing to honour the solidarity we pledged to the head of our sister party in France? What’s Labour about using a profound international crisis as a party management tool? What’s Labour about seeking to divide the parliamentary Labour party?
The answer to all of these questions is: nothing. There’s nothing Labour about any of it.
———————————
Jamie Reed MP is member of parliament for Copeland. He writes The Last Word column on Progress and tweets @jreedmp
Whatever one may think of this particular article, people need to be aware that it can be construed as attempting to undermine the leadership of the Labour Party.
Jeremy Corbyn was elected by a large majority, largely because Labour’s previous economic policies had led the Party, and the country, down a blind alley.
It takes a new leadership time to find its feet. The writer and, it appears, much of the PLP need to show restraint and to be constructive, so that the Party can build a policy framework that leads to victory at the next election.
Endless bickering and back-biting, as we have seen so far, is not the way forward.
I found the the public nature of this article article intensely destructive.
Why? Itsn’t politics allowed any longer?
Its important to get issues in the party out and debated broadly so that the party can evolve an unite. It might be that uniting around Corbyn is not possible but that is not destructive to the party’s long term aims.
.
What is will be destructive is if Corbyn takes the party down the wrong route as it will take years to unwind. A free vote on Syria is essential for Labour as most Brits want to Brit drones in there now degrading IS so if Corbyn tries to force Labour into a position against what many Labour MP’s want then it will be more destructive to Labour.
I agree that some of the language is inflammatory.
But Jamie Reed makes an excellent point about Corbyn potentially refusing a free vote. Whether Labour MPs are whipped or not will not make any difference to the outcome of the vote on attacking Syria. Therefore, the only point of imposing a whip would be to deliberately launch a civil war within the party – to “out” those who don’t agree with Corbyn and to attack them. That would be far more destructive to the Labour party than this article.
There have been 168 identifiable free votes since 1997 and in 25 of these the motion was defeated. However, on any defence or national security related motions, there appear to be a grand total of Zero unwhipped votes, during this 18.5 year period!
It would be a major precedent if free votes were allowed on such issues but of course there is a counterargument, that Every vote should be a free vote, although this would have its own disadvantages and increased uncertainties for any government and opposition.
http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04793
There was a good article by Jacqui Smith http://archive.progressonline.org.uk/2015/11/23/politics-is-a-team-sport-2/
making exactly your point that defence motions are usually whipped. But she also makes the point that whipping is about taking collective responsibility for a policy that has been decided as a whole by the party (only fair as that the electorate tends to vote for the party not the individual MP). However, we now find ourselves in a position where the majority of the PLP (probably) does not support the leadership’s policy – whipping usually means bringing the minority in line with the majority, but in this case it would mean bringing the majority in line with the minority. Which seems wrong.
To be honest, even if there was no argument on principle to offer a free vote, in practical terms it would be a declaration of civil war within the party. Just on pragmatic grounds there should be a free vote. I take your point that it may set a precedent, but only because we find ourselves in such extraordinary times, which hopefully will not be repeated.
I hear that two new nicknames/collective nouns are being widely used, by the UK broadcast media, to describe a certain group of Labour MPs, who include (but are not exclusively confined to) those with the initials: CL, JM, JR, JW, MG, SD.
The first of these nicknames, “les saboteurs”, requires no further explanation but the second: “THs”, as used in the phrase “Which TH should we invite on the programme?”, is derived from the relatively recent addition to the lexicon of Cockney rhyming slang ie. Tristram Hunt.
I shall be remaining as critical as ever of Assad, Putin, Iran and Hezbollah. I look forward to being called every name under the sun by people who, barely a week ago, were calling me every name under the sun because I did not want to nuke Assad, Putin, Iran or Hezbollah.
All sorts and conditions have been bombing Syria for quite some time now. And for what? At the very least, how would their battle against IS be assisted by the addition of what little remained of the British Armed Forces under this Government?
France is not at war because Paris was attacked. Rather, Paris was attacked because France was at war, as Beirut was attacked because Hezbollah was at war, and as a Russian airliner was attacked because Russia was at war.
The attack on Paris was a calculated attack on the beating heart of European high culture, on the capital of Europe’s most abiding state (the eastern border has shifted a bit from time to time, but there has always been France), and on the citadel of the Frankish Crusaders. In no sense were the Frankish Crusaders being attacked as purely an historical memory.