Jeremy Corbyn

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War is the reason

JEREMY CORBYN looks at the real reason for Blair's early departure.
ONE week ago, Tony Blair ceased to be prime minister amid extraordinary scenes.
The contrast between the anti-war demonstrations in Downing St and Whitehall as he departed and the Union Jack-waving welcome which he had received in 1997 could not have been more stark.
In the House of Commons, most MPs appeared keen to forget the Iraq controversy as they gave Blair a standing ovation.
The rewriting of history has already begun, as witnessed by a TV hagiography on Monday night introduced by Will Hutton.
This increasingly absurd film, which appeared to be an attempt to ape the last days of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, managed at one point to convey the bizarre message that future historians will regard the Blair years as a substantial shift to the left in politics.
Lord Hutton came up with this astounding conclusion only minutes before the programme showed Blair supporting President George W Bush's interventionist foreign policy and making the peculiar claim that a strong US president brought about a more peaceful and stable world.
Gordon Brown has now taken over and, while there seem to be substantial differences in style, it is hard at this stage to see whether there are going to be any policy changes.
Last week, Blair confirmed that the number of British troops in Iraq had come down from 9,000 to 7,000 and then to 5,500, but he repeated the mantra that they would stay there as long as is necessary.
Brown must know that Blair left office essentially because of his support for Bush in the "war on terror" and that this massively unpopular war has finally driven him from office.
We should be aware of efforts to manipulate media reporting of both Afghanistan and Iraq in a way that constantly downplays Western involvement there.
The reality is that, so long as British and US forces are in Iraq and NATO continues its campaign in Afghanistan, instability will spread throughout the region.
Jeremy Corbyn can be contacted at corbynj@parliament.uk
Watch out for renewed attacks on our liberties
GORDON BROWN'S government has faced a very challenging start, with gas bombs found outside and nearby a London nightclub and a burning car driven into Glasgow airport.
There can be no excuse or approval for these horrendous actions. Killing, maiming and disfiguring people is inexcusable for any cause at any time.
In the wake of any terrorist-type incident, the traditional response of the British government has been to immediately pass new anti-terror legislation which further damages the civil liberties of everyone.
Since the weekend's events, there have only been mutterings about changing the anti-terror law and the period of detention, but we should nevertheless be vigilant.
This country already has a longer period of detention without charge or trial than most other countries in the world and we've already developed a form of executive detention through control orders.
While Brown did make the point in his Andrew Marr interview on Sunday that there should be judicial oversight, it is important to re-emphasise that this is not the same as a judicial process.
The House of Commons voted for a 28-day detention period because, procedurally, it was impossible to do anything else after a 90-day detention period had been defeated.
In this atmosphere, the best defence against violent and irrational behaviour is to protect civil liberties and ensure that anyone who is suspected and subsequently charged with any criminal activity has the opportunity for a defence in court, not in a secret special court or via three months of detention without charge.
On Tuesday, the Star reported Scotland Against Criminalising Communities Secretary Richard Haley saying: "The interests of justice will be served best if police stick to tried and trusted methods contained in ordinarily criminal law, and avoid using the divisive powers granted them under terrorism laws."
This is a good response to the current rather feverish reporting in most of the media.
'Peace envoy' Blair will have to changehis tune to succeed
IN a peculiar decision, Tony Blair has been appointed as a Middle East envoy on behalf of the quartet of the EU, US, Russia and UN.
Unless he is prepared to swallow an awful lot of things that he has said as prime minister and acknowledges the need to negotiate with Hamas, there will be no prospect of any long-term peaceful settlement.
Any agreement on land exchange, settlements or anything else that only involves Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would be unsustainable.
Blair must involve Hamas in any negotiations that he undertakes, even though this will run counter to the statements that both he and Bush have made ever since the democratic election of the Hamas parliamentary majority.
Likewise, Blair will be forced to say firmly to Israel that, if there is to be any prospect of a deal, it cannot continue to flout international law and hold Palestinian money and prisoners.
Watching the Americas
OBSERVING the politics of the Americas is a fascinating sport.
The US presidential election campaign, which is now seven months into a 20-month run, has apparently ceased to involve policies at all.
Recent news has been dominated by the publication of a league table of fundraising by Democratic candidates Hilary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, who seems to have led for the last two months in fundraising and is, therefore, deemed to be the most popular candidate.
It is to be hoped that the US election will eventually turn on the issues of peace through the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. And perhaps the timely release of Michael Moore's new film on health care Sicko will force the US political establishment to face the reality that a frighteningly large number of US citizens have no access to any kind of health care as they're too poor to get insurance.
Across the Rio Grande in Mexico, Felipe Calderon has been presented as the president since last year's highly controversial election result.
However, on Sunday, Andreas Manuel Obrador attracted hundreds of thousands of supporters to a huge rally in the centre of Mexico City. It showed the level of support that he has among the poor in the capital city, where he was joined by the mayor Marcel Ebrard in denouncing any attempt to privatise the nation's oil industry.
The contrast in political pressures could not be greater.
Real history of the United States
WEDNESDAY marks the anniversary of US independence, when the settlers revolted against British rule.
The flaws in the original declaration of independence, which failed to acknowledge native Americans or the slave trade, have bedevilled US history ever since.
It should be a cue for the media to run a special on the real history of the US, like the one written by radical historian Howard Zinn.