Window on Westminster
The Opposition Labour Party will announce its new leader in September after an extensive campaign which sees four candidates for the leadership and five candidates for the deputy leadership positions criss-crossing the country.
Each candidate first had to win the support of 15% of the Parliamentary Labour Party before going on the ballot paper. This is because any leader should be able to work with fellow MPs. It was likely to be a contest between three front-bench MPs, two of whom have been cabinet ministers under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (and whom I will examine in future), but a fourth candidate, Jeremy Corbyn sneaked past the threshold with nominations loaned by those who will not themselves vote for him.
The three mainstream candidates differ but there are bigger differences between them and Corbyn. He is an MP of 32 years standing who has never held or probably never wanted to hold any front-bench position. He is a serial rebel who never accepted Blair's New Labour philosophy and is on the hard left of the party. Corbyn is a likeable man whose views would, in the view and of many, doom Labour to opposition although many party members admire his politics. I doubt if he will win but he could do well.
Corbyn has long shown considerable sympathy for the Kurds. He spoke powerfully in the parliamentary debate in 2013 on recognising the genocide against the Kurds. Corbyn, whose North London constituency contains a substantial Kurdish population mainly but not all from Turkey, joined forces with Ann Clwyd to highlight Halabja and stop British participation in the subsequent Baghdad Arms Fair. In the 2013 debate he cited 'the systematic discrimination against Kurdish people, culture and language..' and the need for '...a multicultural, multilingual and multi-ethnic society if there is to be long-term peace in the region.' He also recognised that none of the Kurdish national movements calls for an independent Kurdistan outside current borders but seek recognition within national borders. He opposed the 2003 invasion 'not because I was in any sense ever an apologist for Saddam Hussein or what he did, but because I did not believe that the motives for the war were the right ones—I believed they were more to do with American military power and military resources than anything else—and I thought an awful lot of people would die and an awful lot of money would be spent as a result of the war.'
His major contribution in the first televised hustings was to argue that Iraq was the elephant in the room, a subject all ignore as too awkward. It is true that foreign policy barely surfaced in the general election and there has yet to be a specific focus in the Labour contest but Iraq has been constantly highlighted by the anti-war group chaired by Corbyn.
Corbyn argued that Blair tamely followed Bush into supporting what he called an illegal war, although Blair had, to his great credit, sounded the alarm about Saddam well before Bush was anywhere near the White House. Corbyn's allies in the leadership of the anti-war movement not only opposed the invasion but were then, at the very least, soft on the Sunni insurgents and even issued a statement that accepted the right of the Iraqis to oppose the occupation by whatever means necessary. Most never lifted a finger to help Iraqi and Kurdish democrats.
Corbyn is a classical anti-imperialist who thinks that America is more of a threat than a guarantor of world peace. He supports dictatorial demagogues such as Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro and gave a platform to Sinn Fein when its military wing was attacking London. More recently, Corbyn even invited 'friends' in the anti-Semitic Hamas and Hezbollah movements to take chai in the Commons. Corbyn said he could not recollect saying this but it's on YouTube and was hopefully a serious if flawed point rather than a rhetorical flourish.
Some who nominated Corbyn argue that it will widen debate. Others believe that a bold socialist can win votes in a way that has eluded moderates. Some hope that his brand of politics and statist economics will be snuffed out as Labour seeks to win a massive swing to regain power but also answer profound questions about the purpose of social democracy in increasingly hostile conditions.
The Conservative government could implode over whether the UK remains part of the European Union as a sizeable part of the party wants to leave under any circumstances. Labour could then be in with a chance and this contest could come to be most important for the future of British politics. Westminster is certainly a lot more interesting.
* Gary Kent is the director of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
Each candidate first had to win the support of 15% of the Parliamentary Labour Party before going on the ballot paper. This is because any leader should be able to work with fellow MPs. It was likely to be a contest between three front-bench MPs, two of whom have been cabinet ministers under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (and whom I will examine in future), but a fourth candidate, Jeremy Corbyn sneaked past the threshold with nominations loaned by those who will not themselves vote for him.
The three mainstream candidates differ but there are bigger differences between them and Corbyn. He is an MP of 32 years standing who has never held or probably never wanted to hold any front-bench position. He is a serial rebel who never accepted Blair's New Labour philosophy and is on the hard left of the party. Corbyn is a likeable man whose views would, in the view and of many, doom Labour to opposition although many party members admire his politics. I doubt if he will win but he could do well.
Corbyn has long shown considerable sympathy for the Kurds. He spoke powerfully in the parliamentary debate in 2013 on recognising the genocide against the Kurds. Corbyn, whose North London constituency contains a substantial Kurdish population mainly but not all from Turkey, joined forces with Ann Clwyd to highlight Halabja and stop British participation in the subsequent Baghdad Arms Fair. In the 2013 debate he cited 'the systematic discrimination against Kurdish people, culture and language..' and the need for '...a multicultural, multilingual and multi-ethnic society if there is to be long-term peace in the region.' He also recognised that none of the Kurdish national movements calls for an independent Kurdistan outside current borders but seek recognition within national borders. He opposed the 2003 invasion 'not because I was in any sense ever an apologist for Saddam Hussein or what he did, but because I did not believe that the motives for the war were the right ones—I believed they were more to do with American military power and military resources than anything else—and I thought an awful lot of people would die and an awful lot of money would be spent as a result of the war.'
His major contribution in the first televised hustings was to argue that Iraq was the elephant in the room, a subject all ignore as too awkward. It is true that foreign policy barely surfaced in the general election and there has yet to be a specific focus in the Labour contest but Iraq has been constantly highlighted by the anti-war group chaired by Corbyn.
Corbyn argued that Blair tamely followed Bush into supporting what he called an illegal war, although Blair had, to his great credit, sounded the alarm about Saddam well before Bush was anywhere near the White House. Corbyn's allies in the leadership of the anti-war movement not only opposed the invasion but were then, at the very least, soft on the Sunni insurgents and even issued a statement that accepted the right of the Iraqis to oppose the occupation by whatever means necessary. Most never lifted a finger to help Iraqi and Kurdish democrats.
Corbyn is a classical anti-imperialist who thinks that America is more of a threat than a guarantor of world peace. He supports dictatorial demagogues such as Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro and gave a platform to Sinn Fein when its military wing was attacking London. More recently, Corbyn even invited 'friends' in the anti-Semitic Hamas and Hezbollah movements to take chai in the Commons. Corbyn said he could not recollect saying this but it's on YouTube and was hopefully a serious if flawed point rather than a rhetorical flourish.
Some who nominated Corbyn argue that it will widen debate. Others believe that a bold socialist can win votes in a way that has eluded moderates. Some hope that his brand of politics and statist economics will be snuffed out as Labour seeks to win a massive swing to regain power but also answer profound questions about the purpose of social democracy in increasingly hostile conditions.
The Conservative government could implode over whether the UK remains part of the European Union as a sizeable part of the party wants to leave under any circumstances. Labour could then be in with a chance and this contest could come to be most important for the future of British politics. Westminster is certainly a lot more interesting.
* Gary Kent is the director of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.