DAVID Cameron is threatening to put a series of votes to the Commons that would radically up the tempo of the war drums.
First there is his stated aim to expand the UK’s theatre of operations in the Middle East to include bombing Syria. Labour has already, two years ago, thwarted this aim, when the intended target was Assad’s regime. And while today’s intended target is ISIS, this would remain a reactionary war.
Cameron does not care one jot about the suffering Syrian people. His attitude to refugees tells us all we need to know about this “humanitarian”. More bombs in Syria would cost more innocent lives (“collateral damage”), create more refugees and ultimately cause yet more young Muslims to turn to the reactionary dead-end of Islamist terrorism in despair at the barbaric actions of imperialism.
Jeremy Corbyn has suggested that Labour MPs, even shadow ministers, could vote for British planes to bomb Syria – even without a United Nations mandate. But we should all know what the UN is. All the permanent members of its Security Council, including Russia, are up to their necks in Syrian blood. UN mandate or not, Jeremy should tell all our MPs, including Hilary Benn and Maria Eagle, vote against more bloodshed in the Middle East.
Next there is the Tories’ determination to renew Trident.
Scottish Labour voted by an overwhelming 70 per cent to scrap Britain’s nuclear weapons. They did so on “members’ day” when every Labour supporter could hear the debate. There can be little doubt that the same would happen in a UK-wide party conference under the same conditions.
This is the first policy victory for the left since Corbyn’s election. We need the left MPs on the shadow cabinet to take the lead and commit the party to opposing Trident, not only in parliament but on the streets, in the dockyards and around the world.
At the same time we need to commit to not a single job loss when Trident goes – and we need to start planning how we’ll create real alternative jobs for those skilled workers, so their communities thrive and they are not thrown on the scrapheap.
