Much forced outrage and posturing – among the Tories and a few adventurist Labour backbenchers, as well as in the ‘MSM’ – has followed Jeremy Corbyn’s call for the government to behave in accordance with international law, to take evidence-based actions and to involve the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) in the investigation into the Salisbury nerve-agent attacks:
The usual right-wing rags have blared nonsense from their front pages. Tories and the ‘anyone but Corbyn’ Labour handful made blustering noises at and after Corbyn’s Commons speech – and a craven ‘Early Day Motion’ (EDM) was scrabbled together by a few backbenchers offering sycophantic support to Theresa May’s unproven determination to blame Russia.
Ho hum.
Today, the Number 10 press office has issued a statement… confirming the government has done exactly what Corbyn called for:
We, the leaders of France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, abhor the attack that took place against Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, UK, on 4 March 2018. A British police officer who was also exposed in the attack remains seriously ill, and the lives of many innocent British citizens have been threatened. We express our sympathies to them all, and our admiration for the UK police and emergency services for their courageous response.This use of a military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia, constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War. It is an assault on UK sovereignty and any such use by a State party is a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and a breach of international law. It threatens the security of us all.The United Kingdom briefed thoroughly its allies that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack. We share the UK assessment that there is no plausible alternative explanation, and note that Russia´s failure to address the legitimate request by the UK government further underlines its responsibility. We call on Russia to address all questions related to the attack in Salisbury. Russia should in particular provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok programme to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).Our concerns are also heightened against the background of a pattern of earlier irresponsible Russian behaviour. We call on Russia to live up to its responsibilities as a member of the UN Security Council to uphold international peace and security.
- Invoke the UN – check
- Involve international allies – check
- Call on Russia to cooperate with the OPCW – check
- Take a measured approach – ‘highly likely’ rather than the categoric Tory claims yesterday and the adventurist Labour ‘unequivocal’ – check
Comment:
After all that bluster, chest-beating, posturing propaganda by Corbyn’s opponents, they prove – without acknowledging it, of course – that he was once again on the right side of the issue.
By meekly doing exactly what he called for in the Commons yesterday amid all the nonsensical hoo-ha of his opponents.
Corbyn, the anti-Establishment statesman got it right again.
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No mention of the UK providing samples to the OPCW, so not quite what Jeremy said.
Our ambassador to the OPCW said it in his update statement to the OPCW Exec Committee yesterday: “And, as my Prime Minister said in the UK Parliament earlier today, we are working with the police to enable the OPCW to independently verify our analysis.”
Must admit, I don’t recall May saying that yesterday.
https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/EC/87/en/UK_Statement_EC-87.pdf
Thanks for that, much obliged!
I think it’s inferred Kay… if the UK is co-operating with the OPCW then that is a given. It didn’t need to be specifically mentioned in that statement so from their point of view why give Corbyn and his supporters more ammo?
Hang on. ‘any such use by a State party’. But there’s no proof of use by a State.
‘there is no plausible alternative explanation’.False. The US, Israel and UK all possess Novichok and it could be acquired by non-State actors.
‘Russia´s failure to address the legitimate request by the UK government further underlines its responsibility’. The UK quite improperly issued an utlimatum to Russia. Russia has always said it will respond to a formal request via the OPCW.
‘a pattern of earlier irresponsible Russian behaviour’. Erm, yes, but first cast the mote from your own eye.
absolutely, the statement compounds Mays errors in her first statement and even if OPCW now accept its existence and do a Porton Down youturn it still wont honestly be able to identify its source and Dr W**** is telling porkies for some kind of personal gain …….as for “form” the judge in Litvinenko despite wanting to convict Russia from the ist day couldnt do so and established that no Russian assassination laws existed which permitted his murder within Russian law. Russia does have no case to answer and has always agreed to comply with legal OPCW requests…..
Also, check out this: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/03/16/
“Theresa May was right on Monday to identify two possibilities for the source of the attack in Salisbury, given that the nerve agent used has been identified as of original Russian manufacture. Either this was a crime authored by the Russian state; or that state has allowed these deadly toxins to slip out of the control it has an obligation to exercise” Jeremy Bernard Corbyn 15 March 2018
Corbyn is imo wrong about this. If Porton Down has identified the nerve agent as of original Russian manufacture, it must have acquired it by covert means. If PD can do that, other players can too, e.g. Israel and US. So we must follow OPCW procedures – which Britain is not doing – and get at the facts before jumping to conclusions.
I honestly wonder what is driving these adventurist Labour MPs – is it their sense of hubris? The Tories I can understand – and expect it from them.
So I guess now that the turd Tories are following good advice from JC those stupid shrill little Tory’s in disguise Labour MPs who sided with the Tories on the EDM can apologise to the leadership and to the membership for once again getting it WRONG , then xxxx off and resign.
Glad they have been exposed as what they are and hung out to dry by the Tories .
Come on fellow CLPS do the right thing now and call them all to account ffs.
And if you look at Yvette Coopers tweet after grandstanding in the commons she made a tweet after along the same lines as for the EDM in John Woodcock’s rush to write it he gave little thought to the wording causing another MP to amend it have left out the policeman who was also injured
I bet he has egg on his face now
Trump yesterday: “We’ll take it (Russian guilt) as FACT”
Today: ‘It certainly LOOKS LIKE the Russians were involved…”
A fake haired baboon in orange , actually sorry that’s an insult to the baboons who are infinitely more intelligent
BBC was just trumpeting May’s heroic statesmanship in gaining support from Trump – a man capable of holding a dozen contradictory positions at the same time and reversing them the next day.
No mention of climbdowns or the recklessness of accusing and threatening another state with dire consequences on slender or no evidence.
No mention of the strange fact that Corbyn the crazed extremist was the ONLY public figure to keep his head in a ‘crisis’ which had every one of his critics in government and the MSM running around like headless chickens.
Suddenly other news is back on screen, no matter how trivial.
Yes let’s all stand by JC as Putin bathes in Western attacks which aid his election campaign and May et al bathe in their attacks on Putin too for similar reasons. But you need to comply with international law and innocent until proven guilty or we are nothing! Putin built a career in the Russian Secret service and perhaps they new a thing or too about eliminating people without a trace as perhaps other countries secret services may too and whilst the finger of suspicion perhaps points at you know who such an amateur and obvious act just doesn’t add up until we explore the possible reasons behind it. Thank heavan the Right Wing MSM is losing its monopoly and hegemony and social meda offers us a more critical and participatory space for discussion. I love diverse working people in every country and have no time for the rich and powerful ”The True Little People” in every country because of what they do. Solidarity & Peace!
An excellent article by Jeremy Corbyn in the Guardian. with almost 100% positive comments (before the Guardian closed it for comments citing that comments had been opened in error)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/15/salisbury-attack-conflict-britain-cold-war#comments
Yes, a great article, and some great comments, of which my favourite was:
British justice is the best in the world.
It has no need of evidence.
Just right wing hysteria.
Corbyn:
‘…To rush way ahead of the evidence being gathered by the police, in a fevered parliamentary atmosphere, serves neither justice nor our national security…There can and should be the basis for a common political response to this crime. But in my years in parliament I have seen clear thinking in an international crisis overwhelmed by emotion and hasty judgments too many times. Flawed intelligence and dodgy dossiers led to the calamity of the Iraq invasion. There was overwhelming bipartisan support for attacking Libya, but it proved to be wrong. A universal repugnance at the 9/11 attacks led to a war on Afghanistan that continues to this day, while terrorism has spread across the globe…’
Can the Blairite bunch of adventurist MPs explain what is wrong with this position so much that they will sign-up for EDM against such a position in collaboration with the Tories? They should note that their faux-outrage against the Russians in alliance with the Tories is undermined by the Tories continued acceptance of ‘…tidal wave of ill-gotten cash that Russian oligarchs – both allied with and opposed to the Russian government – have laundered through London over the past two decades…’
Excellent article. It’s a pity they stopped comments.
It just occured to me that it’s highly unlikely that the Comments section was enabled by mistake, and the reality is that they were expecting the majority of comments to be hostile towards JC, and when it transpired that nearly all of them were positive, they then closed it and gave the feeble excuse that they did.
THIS is what The Guardian has come to, and it was probably the only reason they published his article in the first place – ie cos they thought he’d get mostly negative and hostile comments.
My thoughts exactly.
Listening to John Woodcock he of the Barrow in Furness parish, criticising Jeremy for not sticking upto the Maybot, was par for the course of a leading member of Progress.
Woodcock who is about as popular as a turd in a swimming pool in Barrow has made himself a proper fool.
Occasionally he pops down to Lancaster to help us out, but considering my CLP is extremely pro Jeremy, he’s unlikely to want to share the campaign trail with some very difficult questions to answer from our members.
I only hope Woodcock and other Blairites are held to account by their respective CLPs for their disloyalty and warmongering. Time they faced the hard questions that the BBC won’t ask.
It really is about time that those CLP membership who’s MP’s are nothing but Tory Lite clones , stepped up to the plate to help out the leadership and started DESELECTING the disloyal bastards.
They can’t continue to leave it up to JC and JM and the small band of loyal front bencher’s to carry on the fight whilst those CLPs do nothing to reign in these back stabbing MP’s .
If you are a loyal JC supporter in a CLP who’s MP is disloyal then please try and organise to take effective action and deselect them , they are not going to change their stance , I know it’s difficult but we have to try.
These quisling MP’s are going to cost us the next election unless their CLPs members take direct and effective action.
Our thoughts and feelings go out to the affected citizens in Salisbury after this barbaric act and the finger of suspicion points at you know who but we must follow international law and innocent until proven guilty as the Right Wing Barbarians at the top on all sides seek to gain from this politically in their infantile power games. But fortunately the main often Right Wing and Pro-establishment media no longer has the monopoly in telling us what to think! Social media has opened up a space for citizens to think critically for themselves and to participate in discussions like on this excellent website.
Only one statesman has emerged as a star in this sorry tale -Jeremy Corbyn – and perhaps Labour needs 350 diverse Labour men and women as MPs like him. Proud to be a Left Wing Democratic Socialist and diverse working people in every country are not our enemies; remember this as Right Wing Barbarians beat their national drums!
Yours in peace and solidarity!
If you have a Labour MP, it is very important that you inform them that you support Corbyn’s stance. What is worrying me is how many MPs have now signed this ridiculous EDM. It currently stands at 39.
How can a Labour MP seriously trust Theresa May over Jeremy Corbyn? I think the case for re-selection grows stronger.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-just-accused-labour-wanting-10550118
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/oct/04/theresa-may-wrong-cat-deportation