Jeremy Corbyn

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Poetic justice of Blair return

JEREMY CORBYN on why Blair seems right at home with France's 'blue rinse' brigade.
THERE is a certain poetic justice that Tony Blair's return to the political centre stage should be as a guest speaker at a rally for France's ruling UNP in Paris last weekend, welcomed by President Nicolas Sarkozy.
In the midst of his battle to raise the maximum working week, destroy public-sector pensions and privatise public services, Sarkozy still found time to invite Blair.
The ex-PM returned the compliment by telling the UNP blue rinse faithful that he would fit neatly into any cabinet position which Sarkozy chose to give him in France.
Blair has clearly spent some months redefining "new Labour" as even further removed from the history of the British labour movement.
He told the adoring crowd that the politics of left and right were a thing of the past and that there is now a coming together of all political philosophies to accept the terms of globalisation and to realise its benefits.
Blair is in a very strong position to talk of these matters, having just been appointed as a consultant to US bank JP Morgan on a reported salary of £500,000, which, on closer examination, actually equates to over £2.5m a year once a myriad of additional payments are factored in.
Blair's main task will be to ensure that JP Morgan's views on privatising the oil and other industries in Iraq are carried and he will also be a strong lobbyist both within the EU and, presumably, with other governments around the world.
However, much more ominous was the overt statement by Sarkozy that he wanted Blair to be the new European Union president, as envisaged in the constitutional treaty.
Blair duly obliged by setting out his vision for Europe, one which goes far beyond the current arrangements, where the limits of European Commission powers are clearly defined vis-a-vis national government. Blair envisages common defence and foreign policies and, ultimately, economic policy for the whole continent.
Clearly, we are some way off the actual appointment of an EU president, but the Prime Minister's putative nomination was immediately condemned by French socialists. One wonders what attitude Gordon Brown would adopt towards it.
In the next two months, the House of Commons will be debating the detail of the European constitutional treaty and, in the light of the expressed view of Blair, this takes on a new significance.
It's not that the left is opposed to the idea of European co-operation, it is more the political straightjacket that the developing EU seeks to put us in.
The Maastricht Treaty enshrined an economic policy based on limited borrowing by national governments, a requirement of price stability as the cornerstone of economic thinking and the development of a common foreign policy.
What is needed is a social Europe dedicated to the maintenance of full employment, a universal welfare state, environmental protection and influence in the world based on human rights and justice.
There are aspects of European policy that are extremely laudable, but the dangers of seeking to establish a United States of Europe in parallel to the US and based on the same economic model will ultimately prove disastrous for the poor of Europe and the wider world.
Nuclear power means more questions without answers
LAST week, John Hutton made an announcement about future energy policy.
More than half of his lengthy statement was taken up with a justification for going ahead with new nuclear power stations.
The government claims to have been consulting on the development of nuclear power over the past two years.
It has had numerous meetings with nuclear industry representatives who have also been lobbying very hard on the spurious grounds of environmental safety and nuclear's less polluting nature compared to fossil fuels.
It is highly likely that new nuclear power stations will be built, because the Planning Bill currently before Parliament allows a whipped vote to decide a series of national planning objectives which will include nuclear power stations, thus removing at a stroke the ability of local communities in England and Wales to question the whole strategy of developing nuclear power.
If the Bill is passed, a community faced with the construction of a new nuclear power station would only be allowed to discuss the local impact, transport links and exterior design and not the more fundamental question of safety and nuclear waste.
However it is presented, nuclear waste will be an incredibly dangerous hazard for several centuries and it cannot be disposed of, only stored, either on the surface or, in the case of France, deep underground.
The argument that nuclear power will mean the sustainability of energy supplies away from imported fuel is equally spurious.
All uranium has to be imported, either from African sources such as Niger and Congo or from Canada or Australia. Its transport is hazardous, as is the refining process. The people who mine uranium are exposed to enormous risks, as well.
The issues surrounding long-term energy supply are obviously very important indeed, as are the emissions created by any kind of power generation.
Perhaps the starting point should be to use less energy by investment in insulation, better public transport and as big an advance as possible in renewable resources, rather than encouraging the development of nuclear power stations, with all the consequent dangers and massive decommissioning costs that they bring.
A 'peace envoy' with no mission to bring peace
TONY Blair is supposed to be a Middle East peace envoy - ie an international representative in Palestine.
His actual job description is to assist capacity-building among Palestinian organisations who recognise the state of Israel, thereby excluding representatives of Hamas, and to facilitate the strategy of pouring money and aid into the West Bank while completely ignoring the spiralling humanitarian and economic crisis in Gaza.
Justice for the Palestinian people requires not just equivalent amounts of aid for Gaza but also political recognition of the majority of the people there.
George W Bush might not have been delayed at the checkpoint on his recent visit, but his whole message was deliberately obfuscated, in reality accepting the occupation of Palestine by Israel.
Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North. He can be contacted at corbynj@parliament.uk