Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again I don’t have the space to mention them. Anyway, one of my biggest regrets is that I voted Labour in 2019. I know, I know: I’ve voted Labour in every election since I was a young boy. Voting Labour wasn’t battered into me from a politically active household. On the contrary, I worked the politics out all by myself. What was different about 2019, and for that matter 2017? Jeremy Corbyn.
I wrestled with my conscience right up to and including polling day on Thursday 12 December. I was happy to vote for Labour under its previous leaders, from Jim Callaghan to Ed Miliband in my voting life, but Corbyn? That was a problem. Always aligning himself with those I considered to be on the wrong side. The IRA, Hamas, SWP front organisation Stop the West…sorry…War and always happy to share platforms with all manner of terrorists and antisemites. In recent times, I have almost felt like apologising for voting for his version of Labour. This week, I actually did feel like apologising for casting my vote for him. Just look at this excerpt from an interview he did with Times Radio’s John Pienaar:
Pienaar: “Do you admire President Zelenskyy?”
Corbyn: “I’ve never met him.”
Pienaar: “Well, I’ve never met him and I admire him, do you admire him?”
Corbyn: “I think he speaks well and I admire that.”
Where to begin with that? There are countless people who I admire and admired. Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Barack Obama, Kenny Dalglish, Clive James, Billy Connolly…the list goes on forever. I’ve not met any of them. but I admire them all hugely. So, why cannot Corbyn bring himself to say he admires Ukraine’s heroic president, as he stands up to a genocidal gangster, an actual fascist murderer in the Kremlin? I suspect it’s because he doesn’t admire him or he doesn’t want to upset his fan base by saying anything bad about the Russian bear. After all, Corbyn has history given his refusal to pin the blame on Vladimir Putin for the Salisbury poisonings, suggesting instead that Russia decide their own guilt or otherwise.
Then, there’s Corbyn’s opposition to NATO, an organisation set-up to keep the peace, whose members join voluntarily and, occasionally, as with the former Yugoslavia, strike decisively to avoid genocide. Quite unlike the former Warsaw Pact, which was set up for the opposite reason. In the same interview with John Pienaar, he said this:
“I would want to see a world where we start to ultimately disband all military alliances. The issue has to be, what’s the best way of bringing about peace in the future? Is it by more alliances? Is it by more military build up? [….] And ask yourself the question, do military alliances bring peace? Or do they actually encourage each other and build up to a greater danger?”
That, unquestionably, includes NATO, although Corbyn deals with the nitty-gritty by way of waffle and rhetoric. There are no solutions in Corbyn world. Just like his hero Tony Benn, he deals in simplistic, empty slogans. We must have peace in Ukraine. Yes, but how? By winding up a defensive military organisation? By not arming Ukraine? Corbyn dodged the question as to whether he, as PM, would have helped arm Ukraine, which is another way of saying he wouldn’t.
it is hard to believe that Britain would have been in an even deeper mess under Corbyn than it is under Boris Johnson but what other conclusion could we draw from what we know about Corbyn? A man of peace, except when the IRA is blowing people up, when Hamas is attacking innocent civilians?
I should never have voted Labour in 2017 and 2019. I betrayed what few principles I have left. And everything he has said and done since the fateful election of 2019 when Corbyn handed the Tories a landslide victory has proved that point. In fact, I shouldn’t have voted at all.
At least Corbyn didn’t win, even if Johnson did. I know how terrified my Jewish friends were at the prospect of a Corbyn government and maybe I let them down. Thankfully, Corbyn is now a small shit stain in history. And by saying I’m sorry – I’m sorry – I can move on.
It’s safe to vote Labour again. Phew. Thank God for that.
