No more 2% Defence

[Jeneral2885]

Yay to Corbyn! Let see how many Labour MPs will vote with him for that. Get out of NATO!

[MADem]

1. Do you have a link that explains your post with a little depth, and do you think this will fly?

I can't see UK leaving NATO, frankly. Even FRANCE rejoined after a 43 year hiatus six years ago.

[LeftishBrit]

2. This is all about the left-wing Jeremy Corbyn so far doing well in the race for leadership of the

Labour Party.

He has a near-pacifist foreign policy, and is very critical of NATO's 2% defence spending target.

But:

(1) He may not win the Labour leadership; and if he does, may well resign, voluntarily or otherwise, within a year or so. He is not really a power-seeker, and only entered the race to present the left-wing viewpoint, and did not expect to win the leadership. I think he's as shocked as anyone by how well he's doing! I suspect that he would not be good at dealing with the inevitable party rebellions against him.

(2) Unfortunately, if he does get to be leader, and especially if the Labour Party continues to degenerate into infighting and he can't control it, the Tories may well win again next time. (That is MY worry about his leadership.)

(3) If he gets to be Prime Minister, he will have to give Cabinet posts to people from all wings of the Party. This will probably mean a Foreign Secretary who is more centrist on foreign policy. Bear in mind that most of the people who vote for him are not voting for his broad foreign policy - though being anti-Iraq-war is a plus - but for his anti-austerity message.

(4) Although I do think that some of Corbyn's foreign policy planks are naïve and unworkable, let us not forget that the other extreme - Blair! - didn't have a great effect on the world either!!!

[MADem]

3. Wow--what a great summary!!! You missed you calling--you should be writing position summaries

for senior leaders!

BANG--four paragraphs, and I feel smart!!! Or at least, not half as thick as I felt before! THANKS!!!


Every time I hear Blair's name, I picture him schtupping Murdoch's wife....! It's an image that just won't leave me!!!

http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/03/wendi-deng-note-tony-blair

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/tony-blair-loses-cool-after-economist-grills-him-on-alleged-wendi-deng-affair-9935174.html

[LeftishBrit]

11. Thanks!

[RichVRichV]

4. Hmm.

There's some odd similarities between UK and US politics right now.

[non sociopath skin]

6. Doesn't surprise me.

Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders on one hand and Nigel Farage and Donald Trump on the other represent a fissure in the Neoliberal consensus.

The Skin

[non sociopath skin]

5. I think that's a fair statement, LB, though I'm a little more optimistic than you.

I think that the more savvy moderates in the Labour Party will read what a Corbyn victory is saying and work with it, just as they are having to take on board what happened in Scotland.

Leaving NATO in 2020? Not a chance!

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. I agree NATO wouldn't be a significant issue

I think Corbyn could be persuaded that, with the wide variety of countries in NATO, membership is compatible with being a democratic socialist.

The Trident replacement would be more interesting, though - the Tories are expected to commit us to paying for a new nuclear system by the end of next year, so money would already have been spent, and contracts signed for more, by 2020. Cancelling it all by then would be a definite election issue, that would cost Labour some votes (but keeping nukes after all wouldn't look good for his honest, principled image).

[Jeneral2885]

8. Always Blair

I do blame the guy for faults but it seems like the hatred for him has made people think foreign policy was only Iraq and the world is only Iraq back then and now.

I doubt Corbyn will try to be compromising. He wants what he wants. MOD might be renamed as Department for Peacekeeping since that's what he sees the role of the military as.

[Ken Burch]

10. There isn't any humane or progressive role that war can play anymore.

It might be different if "humanitarian intervention" was limited strictly to getting civilians out of danger, but it never is. And a war against ISIL would be unwinnable and probably eternal.

We have got to get out of the habit of seeing military intervention as the default solution to every international problem(as Blair did, which is what made it so morally abhorrent to choose him as "Middle East peace envoy".

A Labour government that carried on Blair's foreign policy wouldn't have the resources to do anything non-Tory at home.

[Jeneral2885]

9. Just

check his parliamentary statements.

"As NATO now requires us to pay 2%, and apparently other member states the same, and has since 2006 given itself a global role, whose interests is it defending worldwide, and is it demanding that we replace the Trident nuclear missile system, or is that a self-grown decision?"