Enlist This

Handbags at dawn at Labour HQ, I am told. But basically, Graham Jones was right. As a first principle. any British citizen who enlists in a foreign army is in breach of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870. Andrew Mitchell very cleverly refers to dual nationals, which this is not only or even primarily about, and to the fact that the IDF will take mercenaries, which is immaterial to the law in Britain. He also never mentions Israel's right to self-defence. That form of words is pointedly absent. 10 years ago, he was calling for an arms embargo on Israel.

There seems to be a policy of not prosecuting dual nationals in general, but it is not clear that that is law. Such has the world changed since 1870 that perhaps it should be, but is it? And there is a blanket non-prosecution of anyone who fights for what is not even a British ally, which is certainly not the law. Might it be time for a private prosecution? Not least in Britain, although I do not know whether they would have to be, there are some very rich people who are Arab, or Muslim, or both, and would the CPS dare take over such an action to shut it down? There are indeed foreign nationals in the British Army. And if they have to answer for that in their own countries, then they have to answer for that in their own countries.

All sorts of arguments are being advanced today, so let us see them tested in court, especially since the Israelis are bombing the undoubtedly sovereign states of Syria and Lebanon as well as the Palestinian Territories. This one has been brewing for years. Non-prosecution may be policy, but it may or may not be the law, and since when did politicians decide who should or should not be prosecuted?

Anyway, as over Ukraine, there have been puff pieces in the usual media about people who have joined the IDF voluntarily from Britain while holding only British nationality. That is undoubtedly illegal, and that organised crime is why Britain has not joined 139 of the 193 United Nations member states in recognising the State of Palestine. Prove me wrong. For good or ill, there are British allies in the Middle East. But all hell breaks loose if one of them even so much as tries to buy the Daily Telegraph. We all know what anyone would be called who objected to such a potential acquisition by the State of Israel.

Mitchell is notoriously sweary, so it is fair to say that he calls Israel and everywhere else exactly what Jones did, if not worse. In being critical of Israel to an extent that would be expulsionable from the Labour Party, he concurs with David Cameron, who is also unlikely to hold back in private. If anything, it is the mark of a gentleman.

Jones and Azhar Ali are both firmly on the right of the Labour Party, so I carry no candle for either of them. But Ali bangs on about "Jewish media" and what-not, which no one did under Jeremy Corbyn, whereas Jones, whose bid for selection was supported by Ruth Smeeth, merely criticised a foreign government of which the British Government was also highly critical and whose present actions the British public overwhelmingly opposed, and he called for the existing law of this land to be enforced, so here we are. 

Jones should refuse to attend some meeting with the spotty youths of the Labour Party's staff, and instead announce that he would be standing as an Independent for his own former seat, which he had lost last time by only 2,951 votes. When even hardline Blairites had to do that sort of thing, then Keir Starmer, in politics barely a week, should think on. He would not. But other people would. Many a stalwart of the Labour Right made no endorsement at the last Leadership Election. They are many things. But they are not amateurs.

Jones was an Owen Smith supporter who in 2017 set up an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Venezuela, in which he had never previously shown any interest, in order to support that funny little Guaidó person. While I would ordinarily be delighted to see the back of a politician of that stripe, a foreign state has taken control of the Official Opposition (though not of the Government, which criticises it heavily on a daily basis even if to very little practical effect), and is hoping to ride its poll lead to what would amount to a coup at the General Election.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.