We Should Salute Jeremy Corbyn

Although he is far better than the gallery-playing that his present platform requires him to include, Peter Oborne writes:

According to conventional wisdom, there were two big political winners from this week’s Parliamentary vote authorising air strikes in Syria.

The first of these was David Cameron. To be fair to the Prime Minister, he did achieve a larger than expected parliamentary victory endorsing his plan to attack Islamic State in Syria as well as Iraq.

The second victor, so people say, was Labour’s Foreign Affairs spokesman Hilary Benn.

Mr Benn (son of the Left-winger Tony Benn, who was a long-time mentor to Jeremy Corbyn) is suddenly being lauded as a famous orator after his speech in favour of war.

After years below the political radar, Hilary Benn is now hailed by excitable commentators as Mr Corbyn’s replacement as Labour leader.

But I believe that only one politician deserves to emerge with an enhanced reputation as a result of the week’s events.

That figure is Jeremy Corbyn.

Whether or not you like Mr Corbyn (and I profoundly disagree with many of his policies), there is no denying that he emerged from the arguments over Syria as a man of moral courage, integrity and principle.

Indeed, how interesting that after months of denigrating Corbyn, the Blairite tendency — together with those excitable inhabitants of the Westminster bubble — have been made to look silly in their prediction that Labour would lose the Oldham by-election.

In the real world, it seems the voters have more time for the Labour leader than the metropolitan commentariat.

Faced with bitter hostility from his own side on Wednesday, Mr Corbyn stood his ground. Courteously, he set out his honest doubts about the wisdom of bombing raids on Syria.

To put his achievement another way, Mr Corbyn performed the role which every leader of the Opposition is expected to perform, according to British constitutional textbooks: he held the Government to account.

Unfortunately, this approach has become very unusual in modern politics just when it is most needed — before our country goes to war.

None of the British adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya in recent years produced any gain for our country, to offset the sacrifices made during those conflicts by our soldiers and their families.

Quite the contrary — all three turned into disasters.

Indeed, Islamic State came into being as a direct consequence of the Iraq invasion, as even Tony Blair grudgingly acknowledged recently.

Crucially, all three of these disasters were strongly supported by British Opposition leaders. In 2003, Iain Duncan Smith failed to ask the right questions ahead of the Iraq invasion.

David Cameron failed as Tory leader when Tony Blair dispatched troops to southern Afghanistan in 2006. Ed Miliband was equally remiss over Libya.

At last we have an Opposition leader who does his job by opposing the government and asking the right questions. 

Throughout the debate, Jeremy Corbyn was calm, resolute and precise — a performance that was especially creditable given that he was subject to vilification from his own Labour MPs. 

One of the most disloyal of these was Hilary Benn, whose speech on Wednesday night was not nearly as impressive as reported. 

Mr Benn showed no comprehension of the complexities of the Syrian civil war. He offered no ideas of his own to contribute to a successful outcome. 

He is a political mediocrity who has become a convenient stalking horse for the Blairite faction which has been determined to destroy Jeremy Corbyn since he was elected. 

There is growing evidence that the British people have seen through all the politicians cynically trying to exploit the war for their own ends. 

Polls now suggest that opposition is growing to David Cameron’s decision to attack Syria. Indeed, the Prime Minister’s case for war is already in disarray. 

In particular, his claim that there are 70,000 ‘moderate’ Syrian ground troops ready to fight ISIS is now in shreds.

Mr Cameron has personally insulted millions of British people (including many Daily Mail readers) who have doubts about the bombing by implying that they are supporters of terrorism. 

I would be the first to agree that Jeremy Corbyn has made very serious mistakes during his three months as Labour leader. 

His economic policies are frankly incredible, and he has surrounded himself with too many unsavoury figures from the hard-Left factions which came close to destroying his party during the Eighties. 

Furthermore, the conduct of some of Mr Corbyn’s activists this week has been despicable, particularly the intimidation of Labour MPs such as Stella Creasy who, for entirely honourable reasons, chose to support the war. Unquestionably, there are grave doubts surrounding Corbyn’s leadership. 

It is hard to see that Labour can fight the next election if the party leader is in open warfare with his own MPs. But these are problems for the future. 

I believe we should salute Jeremy Corbyn: this was by some distance the finest week of his leadership to date. Following yesterday’s Oldham by-election result, his position is now safer, at least in the short term. 

He can also take heart from the latest poll showing a solid lead for his party’s candidate as London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan — who also voted against the war. 

But whatever his ultimate fate, Jeremy Corbyn has performed a tremendous service to the cause of British Parliamentary democracy by forcing a real national debate about the decision to extend Britain’s participation in the war.

For that, if nothing else, he — as voters in Oldham recognised, I suspect — deserves credit.

Oborne's superb appearance on Sputnik will be shown again at 11:30 tonight. Don't miss it.