Journalist Yvonne Ridley says recent news of a memo concerning Tony Blair and Iraq should give Jeremy Corbyn good reason to take drastic action
THE emergence of an old memo proving that Tony Blair was preparing for a war in Iraq a year ahead of the invasion presents the current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with a gift.
Surely there is nothing now blocking his path to set in motion moves to expel from the Labour party a man who led the UK into a disastrous war on a tissue of lies.
The toxic legacy of the Bush-Blair war continues today as a path of death and destruction across the Middle East can be traced back to those very first bombs unleashed on Baghdad in March 2003.
Surely there is nothing now blocking his path to set in motion moves to expel from the Labour party a man who led the UK into a disastrous war on a tissue of lies.
No one can dispute Corbyn’s anti-war credentials but he now needs to show that a man of peace can also be strong and not afraid to make tough decisions. He did promise to apologise for the Iraq War (something we’re still waiting to hear, by the way) and kicking out Blair would be more than a symbolic gesture.
But as Corbyn moves with the poise and grace of a morris dancer with cramp there is someone who has no such hesitation in sticking in the political boot. Step forward Alex Salmond, the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman in Westminster.
Seizing on the leaked memo, he reckons it clearly shows the Labour prime minister backed military action a year before seeking a vote in the British parliament and long before the diplomatic efforts at the United Nations were exhausted. In other words Blair lied and there it is, in black and white, in the leaked memo.
We can expect a few strategically fired questions from Salmond and the rest of the SNP in the House of Commons this week over the affair, proving once again that the most decisive opposition in the London-based parliament is not led by Labour.
Salmond says: “The memo contradicts claims from Blair that all that time he had been seeking diplomatic ways to avoid an invasion. It also adds weight to the evidence given by Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to the United States – to the Chilcot inquiry – that the military timetable and preparation for invasion took precedence over any diplomacy and specifically over the timetable for the weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix.”
No one can dispute Corbyn’s anti-war credentials but he now needs to show that a man of peace can also be strong and not afraid to make tough decisions.
While the former Middle East Peace Envoy is playing down its significance, a spokesman for him says the memo was “consistent with what he was saying publicly at the time”.
It most certainly was not! At the time Powell wrote the memo Blair was trying to convince the British electorate that he was doing everything in his power to find a diplomatic solution.
Really? Not according to Powell, who told Bush: “On Iraq, Blair will be with us should military operations be necessary. He is convinced on two points; the threat is real; and success against Saddam will yield more regional success.”
There are thought to be a million women in Iraq and elsewhere in the region without husbands thanks to the actions of widow makers Bush and Blair – hardly a success. The region is in chaos and there’s no sign of it abating; add to that the rise of Daesh (Isis) and the millions of refugees desperately trying to find a peaceful haven and one has to wonder why Corbyn continues to dither.
Surely he’s not intimidated by the few score Blairites who sit in the House of Commons? They are hardly representative of the new face of the Labour’s membership.
Corbyn won the leadership with a higher percentage of the vote than Blair did in 1994, taking 59.5 per cent of the vote compared to 57 per cent for Mr Blair.
Despite only gaining the bare minimum of nominations from MPs to get on the ballot paper, Corbyn proved very popular with ordinary members, registered supporters and affiliated trade unionists.
He won the leadership with a higher percentage of the vote than Blair did in 1994, taking 59.5 per cent of the vote compared to 57 per cent for Mr Blair.
With that sort of mandate, expelling Blair for bringing the party into disrepute should be a popular move and he would not be the first to be expelled over Iraq – George Galloway, the then Glasgow Kelvin MP was kicked out (by Blair) in October 2003.
Come on Corbyn, what are you waiting for?
Picture courtesy of Chris Beckett