Pays tribute to bravery of emergency services and members of public on London Bridge
“Real security requires calmly making the right calls at moments of high pressure” and can’t be done “on the cheap””
In a speech in York on Sunday, following Friday’s terror attack in London, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will praise those who responded with such bravery to the attack – and will criticise government policies, saying real security can’t be done “on the cheap”.
Corbyn will pay tribute to emergency services personnel and members of the public who put themselves in harm’s way:
My heart goes out to the families and friends of those who lost their lives in such an appalling and senseless act of terror, to the injured and to all those in shock at what they witnessed on London Bridge on Friday.
We all owe the deepest debt of gratitude to our emergency services – to the incredibly brave police officers who put their own lives on the line to save others and to all our emergency service workers involved in responding to the incident and caring for the injured. They are true professionals and our whole country is proud of them.
And once again, we saw extraordinary bravery from members of the public who ran towards the attacker and put themselves in harm’s way to stop him doing harm to others. You are an example to us all; we admire you, and we all give you our very deepest thanks.
He will also underline his commitment to keeping the UK’s people safe:
I will always do whatever is necessary and effective to keep our people safe.
First of all, the police who put themselves on the line to protect us will have the authority to use whatever force is necessary to protect and save life. If police believe an attacker is wearing a suicide vest and innocent lives are at risk, then it is right they are able to use lethal force.”
Corbyn will re-emphasise the importance of properly funding our public services:
It is our duty to look calmly and seriously at what we need to do to give people real security. Our public services are the glue that bind our society together. Community policing, the probation service, mental health, youth and social services, all play a vital part.
When those public services are cut back as they have been during the past decade, they leave behind gaps. That can lead to missed chances to intervene in the lives of people who go on to commit inexcusable acts, whether it’s during their childhood, their first brush with the law, their first conviction, or in prison through rehabilitation programmes.
Take the probation service, part-privatised in 2014, resulting in disaster. The most serious cases stayed in a justice system badly undermined by austerity. A failure to recruit has left huge staffing shortfalls and with staff supervising more cases than ever expected, posing a serious risk to our security.
Real security doesn’t only come from strong laws and intelligence, it comes also from effective public services that have the funding they need. You can’t keep people safe on the cheap.
And he will remind the Tories of their foreign policy mistakes that have made the UK less safe:
Real security demands more than the correct operational decisions by trained and properly funded professionals, it requires political leadership as well.
For far too long, our country’s leaders have made the wrong calls on our security. Their mistakes in no way absolve terrorists of blame for their murderous actions. The blame lies with the terrorists, their funders and recruiters. But if we are to protect people we must be honest about what threatens our security. The threat of terrorism cannot and should not be reduced to questions of foreign policy alone. But too often the actions of successive governments have fuelled, not reduced that threat.
16 years ago, I warned against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I said it would set off a spiral of conflict, hate, misery, desperation that will fuel the wars, the conflict, the terrorism, and the misery of future generations. It did, and we are still living with the consequences today.
I was also one of the few in parliament warning against the NATO-led intervention in Libya in 2011. Britain should not have joined this conflict, which has created a vast ungoverned space, contributed to misery in the region and made us less safe at home.
The war on terror has manifestly failed. Britain’s repeated military interventions in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia have exacerbated, rather than resolved the problems. Now we risk being dragged into a further conflict with Iran on the side of a Saudi regime which is an enemy of human rights everywhere, prolonging a desperate humanitarian crisis in Yemen, interfering in its neighbours’ affairs and murdering journalists. This policy has not made us one bit safer.
Real security requires calmly making the right calls at moments of high pressure, often against the grain of conventional wisdom. That requires the courage and strength to chart an independent course when we think our friends and allies are doing the wrong thing.
It is time for Britain to stop being tied to Donald Trump’s coat-tails. Boris Johnson has been the world’s leading sycophant towards the US President. From climate change denial to unconditional support for the Israeli far right, from racism to confrontation with China, Trump is taking the world on a dangerous path.
Britain must make its own foreign policy, free from a knee-jerk subservience to a US administration which repudiates our values. Under Labour, Britain will have its own voice in the world, standing tall for security, peace and justice. That’s the path to real security.”
SKWAWKBOX view:
Only Labour has as its leader a statesman capable of the calm and measured approach that will keep this country safest.
Vote Labour.
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I thought I would do a search on the Daily Mail’s website to see if any of the commenters were making derogatory comments about Jeremy in relation to the London Bridge knife attack. Anyway, the first three articles that came up in the search results didn’t have a Comments section, but the fourth one I clicked on DID, and so I straight away selected ‘Best Rated’, and Yes!, you guessed it, the very FIRST comment – ie the most highly rated – was exactly THAT, and this is what it says:
The corbyn will not approve of this style of protection for the public….
At the time of writing it has 7,528 up-votes. and of the twenty ‘Replies’, the first four were saying somwthing similar. The third most highly rated comment was ALSO about Jeremy, and had 6,855 up-votes, and this is what it says:
And Comrade Corbyn wants to have no armed police response units this Incident could have had very serious without them
The first of the four people to ‘Reply’ made the following point, which in effect exposed the falsehood the initial poster was trying to put in peoples heads:
Police have said they don’t want every policeman to be routinely armed. Many are happy with tasers. Corbyn said the same. The police are brave with what they’re dealing with.
As I’ve said on more than one occasion in the past, the up-votes AND the down-votes are undoubtedly manipulated by the DM itself, and for the obvious reason, and the votes for the above reply is a perfect example – ie 324 up-votes, and 717 down-votes!
The SECOND reply received even MORE down-votes, but whilst appearing to be supportive of JC, it was in fact reinforcing the falsehood of the person who said Jeremy doesn’t want any armed police response units. Anyway, a bit further down there’s the following comment, with 1,786 up-votes:
How long before old Jezza says he should have been arrested? [as opposed to shot dead]
And all of the five Replies were in agreement, in effect.
And a bit further down with 763 up-votes, and obviously alluding to one of the questions Andrew Neil threw at Jeremy in the interview last week, it says the following:
Corbyn would have asked the police to have a discussion with him first, which about sums up his attitude toward the safety of the people.
And then a bit further down the page with 584 up-votes and 560 up-votes respectively are the following two comments:
Has Corbyn offered his condolences to the dead terrorists family yet?
Scary thing is if Corbyn gets elected we wont have armed police!
___________________________
I have no doubt whatsoever that these comments were written by shills/propagandists of the Integrity Initiative type, and then the up-votes pumped up so that at least a couple of them would be right at the top of the list of Best Rated, and kept there, and a few more a bit further down. The point being of course that ‘they’ are well aware that most people only read the first twenty to thirty comments or so.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7739057/Gun-shots-heard-London-Bridge-police-confirm-incident-area.html#comments
I’ve checked out about half-a-dozen more articles on the DM’s website re ‘London Bridge’, and the one above is the only one with a Comments section, but I just came across the following article posted yesterday afternoon with the headline ‘Jeremy Corbyn: Questions over London Bridge attack need answering urgently’, and what’s particularly interesting about it is that towards the end of the article it says the following:
Mr Corbyn will be speaking about the NHS later, and was asked whether he believed the Prime Minister’s reassurances about its future.
He said: “No, I do not believe the Prime Minister one bit because the documents I showed this week indicate that the bottom line for the US is access to public services, crucially access to our National Health Service.
“They put that on the table, they want control of our NHS and control of the process that our NHS pays for medicines in the future.
“So we are not going to do a trade deal with the USA that puts the NHS at risk.”
_________________________
Jeremy waved the leaked document in the air about the NHS and the trade deal during the leaders debate on ITV the Wednesday before last – eleven days ago now – but were the media interested in the document? No, not at all as far as I am aware, and their only ‘concern’ was the way he pronounced Epstein! Says it all really!!
But then it is the CORPORATE media after all.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-7741833/Jeremy-Corbyn-Questions-London-Bridge-attack-need-answering-urgently.html
“I have no doubt whatsoever that these comments were written by shills/propagandists”
Not necessarily so – readers of the Mail are its natural cannon fodder.
Tory TALK: tough on security, tough on crime. NOISE!
Tory performances are the OPPOSITE of their NOISE.
ALL crime surges, and TERRORIST ATTACKS in the last decades have taken place under Tory operated Tory Blair, Tory May and now Tory Boris Johnson. Death on our streets by knife, in the same London Bridge as under Theresa May, AND just B4 a General Election.
Same Commissioner in charge of the abhorrent killing of Jean Charles De Menezes sitting calmly on a Stockwell train. Shot point blank several times by the police. Astonishingly same Commissioner was rehired‼️ Then more DEATHS by KNOWN TERRORISTS occur IN THE SAME AREA as TWO YEARS AGO, before a General Election.
“Lessons will be learnt”❓ By Tories❓NO‼️ Said same Commissioner is rewarded by Tory Theresa May with a National Honour. MADE A DAME! Dame of the British Empire even BEFORE yet ANOTHER known terrorist, runs about murdering in the SAME area! A known terrorist, left free to traipse around the country with a TAG to kill again. Under the “supervision” of the same old IDEOLOGICAL PRIVATISE EVERYTHING Tories. Is the proven failed flog everything attitude just to guarantee millions of £££ for Tory Party by the 1% ???
A KNOWN TERRORIST “supervised” by a PRIVATISED PROBATION SERVICE / A PRIVATE TAGGING COMPANY allowing more terror on our streets… AGAIN‼️
PRIVATE COMPANY G4S PRISON RIOTS not enough for the TORIES. They are happy to have the breakdown of order on our streets also… as long as it is for private profit.
Tory Theresa May honoured Commissioner “LEARNS LESSONS”. Result? More terror on our streets. That is the result of TORY RAMPANT I D E O L O G I C A L FLOG EVERYTHING off to the PRIVATE SECTOR.
Private sector soooo good. Soooo wonderful. Just have another Inquiry. That will kick it into the Long Grass as usual. The cost of MILLIONS won’t be privatised though. Funny that. Privatised Tory supporting cladding company in a Tory run borough, used FLAMMABLE cladding, GRENFELL goes up in flames. Over a hundred killed. Tory PRIVATISATION sooo good. What a money spinner. Especially as the clean up of the Tory mess is ALWAYS paid for by PUBLIC MONEY. Funny. No⁉️
Of the private sector is sooo wonderful why did’t they rescue the likes of BHS, BRITISH STEEL, or pay for the clean up of their many messes, or bail out each other, or STOP GOBBLING UP BILLIONS IN SUBSIDIES???
The TORY CON TALK must be exposed CLEARLY and ROBUSTLY‼️ Over and over. EVERY HOUR. The MSM never examine TORY BLIND MISMATCH OF TALK with ACTIONS. Tory scandals must be raised EVERY HOUR.
EVERY HOUR‼️‼️ We cannot let them continue with their IDEOLOGICAL TORY NASTINESS at PUBLIC EXPENSE. Our expense‼️‼️‼️
Oh, and Theresa May, please tell us EXACTLY why you honoured the Commissioner. Jean Charles shot dead. Knife crime out of control. Known terrorist free to roam and kill… in the same place under the same “leadership”. Please Tory May, what • was • the • honour • for ?
For “learning lessons”? We deserve to know exactly.
NO MORE LONG INQUIRIES. Just tell us.
Does the Met.Police still have a shoot to kill policy post John de Menezes? Khan was restrained by members of the public who were told to ‘stand away’ while the police shot him while prostrate on the ground. BBC immediately suggested that he was wearing a ‘faux suicide vest’, so he had to be shot. Sends a big message, but what about next time & a suspect is innocent? Suspect cannot be interviewed post mortem; great intelligence.
As I recall from that time when it was first a turd to throw at Corbyn, the concept of a ‘shoot to kill policy’ was an invented load of nonsense, anyway, and Corbyn was simply stating the bleedin’ obvious that no-one with any grasp disagreed with.
Good point JC and when right wing barbarian Trump gloats over taking out the IS Leader “He died like a dog!” such careless words may help recruit the impressionable (who are offered simple solutions) to the Barbarians – the World needs statesmen like JC.
Did hardest political thing ever done in life Saturday, a few of us leafleted a football match with what Labour will do for fans leaflet.
We may have given out 100 leaflets but hard work, is a lot of bitterness out there, and we got some abuse from lumpen elements but Labour must work harder on the Leave areas.
GET BREXIT DONE? BUT DON’T GET DONE BY A TORY BREXIT!
The Johnson deal is a Bad Deal, it sells out rights at work, sells out N.Iteland and could lead to a USA trade deal which sells our NHS and could mean NHS bills for YOU!
It is a CRAP DEAL – you wouldn’t buy a house just on the photo, you check it out and negotiate until you have a good deal.
Labour will get A BETTER BREXIT DEAL which will be put to a final public vote within 6 months if they win and there will be a Remain option SO YOU DECIDE!
LAB4HOPE
When a justice system uses the same measure of judgment on a Terrorist and equate the actions and motivation of a radical as the same as a common criminal then we see the carnage that can be done by one man whos motivation and planning outstrips anything a criminal could dream up.How can a enemy combatant be released without any consideration and be subject to automatically being free to cause the death of civilians.The justice system once again is behind the times and foreign policy straight out of the crusades of history and led by an unbalanced President of the USA.please give us Corbyn and some sanity.
Good to see Corbyn defending his sound judgements on foreign policy.
But I would go further: There is no evidence, as Scott Ritter has pointed out, that Russia violated the INF missile treaty.
And there is genuine uncertainty about what exactly happened in Salisbury. Even Theresa May has never actually said that the nerve agent was actually made in Russia. She said it was of a type ‘developed in Russia’ which is rather different.