On the 20th anniversary of Foreign Secretary Robin Cook’s pronouncement that the 1997 Labour government would adopt an ‘ethical foreign policy’, Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said Labour would recommit itself to the concept. True to her word, Labour’s 2019 Manifesto declares that ‘International peace and security will be a primary objective of a Labour government’s foreign policy’. Let’s recall that, within six years of 1997, the Labour government’s ethical demonstrations included bombing former Yugoslavia and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Manifesto reasserts Labour’s commitment to NATO and to allocate at least the NATO-prescribed 2% of GDP on defence spending. Trident will be renewed; a single Trident missile can cause 1,825 times more damage than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Reviewing the BBC’s attacks on Jeremy Corbyn’s voting record on foreign wars, Chris Nineham, deputy chair of Stop the War Coalition, writes: ‘Anyone with any sense of history or concern about the future can see we urgently need a sharp change in our foreign policy. Corbyn is the only candidate in this election who has a chance of making that happen’ (Counterfire 14 November 2019). Corbyn was chair of Stop the War from 2011 until Labour MPs forced him to resign when he became Party leader in 2015. Corbyn’s historical record is not the Labour Party’s position, never was, and it is not what people are being asked to vote for.
The Manifesto states: ‘Failed military interventions in countries like Libya have worsened security across North Africa, accelerating the refugee crisis.’ In 2011, only 11 Labour MPs voted against the UN resolution allowing NATO to bomb Libya; Emily Thornberry and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott voted for. Labour repeats its commitment to a two-state solution in the Middle East: ‘a secure Israel alongside a secure and viable state of Palestine’. As ever, Israel comes before Palestine in order of priority; the rights of the Palestinian people to fight against occupation are denounced or ignored, and the fiction that the Zionist state will allow any form of Palestinian state maintained. This is Labour Friends of Israel’s position, one which suppresses any criticism of Israel, be it for imprisoning and bombing Gaza to building illegal settlements rendering a viable Palestinian state impossible, denouncing it as anti-Semitism. Prior to the election 75 Labour MPs, including Thornberry and Shadow Defence Secretary Nia Griffith, were Labour Friends of Israel.
Corbyn was once an outspoken opponent of Trident (photo: Garry Knight)
While the Manifesto says the people of the Chagos Islands and their descendants should have the right to return ‘to the lands from which they should never have been removed’, it was a Labour government that began depopulating the islands in 1967-68 to make way for the US base at Diego Garcia, which the US will not surrender. It is to be welcomed that Labour says it is committed to the rights of the peoples of West Papua and Western Sahara, but these territories have little strategic importance for British imperialism. However, ‘We have a duty to stand up for the security and sovereignty of our overseas territories, including the Falklands’, just as Labour did under Michael Foot’s leadership, when it backed Margaret Thatcher’s war in 1982.
The Kurds get a mention: ‘The treatment of the Kurdish people in Syria, including by Turkey, and of the Uighurs in China has been met with total inaction and apathy by the current UK government.’ What about the treatment of Kurds in Turkey? This statement is feeble, if understandable, when we recall that a Labour government banned the PKK in 2001, Turkey is a NATO member and British arms are sold to the Turkish state. Labour says it will suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia when such arms are used in Yemen and to Israel when they are used to violate Palestinians’ human rights. Any arms supplies to Saudi Arabia and Israel are to facilitate oppression and maintain British imperialism’s strategic role in the Middle East. Reassuring its trade union backers, Labour will continue to support Britain’s ‘world-leading’ defence industry, and ensure that the Royal Navy’s ships are built in the UK.
On the arena in the world where the struggle between the forces of imperialism and socialism is at its most intense, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Labour Manifesto has nothing to say. No mention of Cuba or Venezuela, no criticism of US coup plans and the blockade, no expressions of concern for the rights of indigenous peoples confronting mining multinationals headquartered in the City of London. Labour may change its figureheads but it remains a party fit for imperialism.
Trevor Rayne
