It's been a while, so it's time to talk again about our friends in the North. Who else am I speaking of other than the esteemed comrades of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? Lurid stories have done the rounds about the Dear Respected Comrade's execution of two officials by anti-aircraft gun for the crime of snoozing in a meeting. Alas, this is but churnalism, but as ever, there is a deadlier side to Kim's clownish, murderous japes: the North's second nuclear test this year. This is a big deal. Since exploding its first bomb a decade ago, Kim's regime have tested devices of ever increasing magnitude. What makes this "special" isn't just the bomb's yield, but the claim they were testing a warhead. After showing one off (allegedly) back in March, the regime wants the world to know it won't be long before they can mount warheads on their long-range missiles. A few of quick notes to remember when we're thinking about North Korea. First things first, despite the Bond villain methods Kim reportedly employs to dispose of those incurring his displeasure, the obsession with WMD and maintenance of a grotesquely over-large military, the grinding repression of the monstrous dictatorship, its synchronised mass parades and other trappings of royal pomp, and the inimitable blood curdling warnings against the "US imperialists" and the South Korean "fascist puppet regime", what Kim and his criminal cohort isn't is mad. Despite appearances, actions undertaken by individuals, organisations, and totalitarian dictatorships are simultaneously meaningful and, within their own terms, rational. This is true of the Kim regime. Without excusing its awfulness, from the standpoint of the regime's preservation its long-standing military-first policy aids its longevity in two ways. Across the 38th Parallel sits a not insubstantial South Korean army backed by a major US military deployment replete with nuclear weapons. Effectively being on its own since the mid-70s without serious Soviet or Chinese backing, the North attended to its own Cold War frontier at the expense of a more rounded economic development. And so North Korean economics are locked in a death spiral. Perceived military necessity consumes the country's meagre resources, which holds back economic development, and therefore undermines the capacity to sustain the military. This is where the missile and nuclear programmes come in. They seem perverse, but it holds out the possibility of rescuing the regime from utter collapse. With nuclear weapons and the capacity to reach not just targets in the South and Japan, but also US bases further afield and the American west coast, not only does the North have a serious bargaining chip in its long-term aim of a non-aggression treaty with the US, much of the military capacity becomes redundant and resources can be expended on making the transition away from autarchy to a managed market system, as per China. As this transition is affected, new berths have to be found for bureaucrats who've crawled up the military's ladder - and the odd periodic purge works to get rid of those who might prove to be too awkward. Second, for the majority of the South's residents, particularly those born after the Korean War, and for whom the US-backed post-war dictatorships are hazy memories, the North's threats, drills, and nuclear tests are more or less part of the mundane everyday. Like most advanced democracies, the right are adept at stoking fears - this time about the North and therefore the need to take a tough line with Pyongyang, And this fear of the other is most effective among older voters who, like everywhere else, are more likely to turn out for elections. Third, instead of laughing about Kim's grotesqueries, shouldn't we also ask about the responsibility we, as the West, have for this situation? This isn't to suggest Kim is blameless and it should be piled up at Washington's door. But this is international relations, and relations tend to have reciprocal effects. The question never asked about Korea's Cold War frontier is the dialectical interplay between either side. The North, for instance, were not the first to deploy nuclear weapons in the peninsular. The Kims are playing catch up. It's not the North that carries out massive annual military exercises designed to intimidate and punish. And it's not the North obstructing a lasting peace settlement - being left alone to repress his people is something the Brilliant Comrade (and all Stalinoid despots) desire most of all.
I was mid-way through my first degree when Tony Blair entered Downing Street. Looking back at myself then, I was a wee bit ultra when it came to some issues (and I was tediously prolier than thou). But most of the basics of my world view were in place - the importance of class to politics and Marxism as the indispensable means for studying capitalism, to name but two. So when Blair became Labour leader and then PM, I had no illusions to shatter because I (then) saw New Labour as continuity Thatcherism. Yet what was it like for those who didn't experience life before Blair, of growing up in the shadow he and the Iraq tragedy cast over British politics? Robin Wilde in his excellent discussion below has kindly provided some answers to questions that have had us old farts scratching our heads, particularly why a large number of younger activists have been drawn to Jeremy Corbyn's campaign. Some time in 2001, I was sitting in a booster seat in the back of a car driving home from Loughborough. I was six, and as you do at that age, asking questions about things I�d vaguely heard about but hadn�t understood. �Mummy�, I asked, looking up from a Harry Potter book. �What�s socialism?� My Mum laughed. �That�s the kind of government we have now�. I didn�t press the matter further. At six, I was far more interested in ensuring Voldemort was stopped than the forward march of the proletariat. But in retrospect, it seems vaguely amusing that some people in 2001 thought they had a straightforwardly socialist government. My parents, like many of my generation�s parents, are basically left wing (a lifelong Labour voter and a lifelong Democrat) without taking it any further than voting. So it interests me in hindsight that two years later, a week before my eighth birthday, I remember being bundled onto a train for a trip down to London. At the time I was more interested in the exhibits at the Science Museum than the rest of the day, but I clearly remember walking slowly with a lot of noisy people, holding my Dad�s hand behind a bus blaring Give Peace a Chance from a loudspeaker. I�d be willing to bet I wasn�t the only child in the crowd that day who's now a Labour member. The year after that, I was sitting in the lounge ploughing through something on the GameCube, when my Dad came in and asked me to go post a letter. I resisted as only a nine year old can the request to walk 300 yards to the postbox, but Dad had an ace up his sleeve. �It�s my postal vote for John Kerry. It�ll help get rid of George W Bush." I believe I left a child-shaped hole in the door. I tell these three stories because they�re fun anecdotes about the early life of a political geek, but also because I believe they�re typical experiences for a lot of young people getting involved in the Labour Party. Understanding this is therefore crucial for understanding what's happening now. To be clear - I am not typical in other ways. I�ve cast my vote for Owen Smith, I'm not convinced by the case for proportional representation, and favour retaining Trident - all decisions that clash somewhat with other lefties my age. But the experience of growing up, and becoming politically aware in the Iraq War and Late Blair era has had a profound effect on millions of people now entering adulthood, and they are a generation mainstream political discussion can ill-afford to miss. The revolutionaries of New Labour, it has to be remembered, took most of the party with them. Blair won an overwhelming mandate from members in 1994, on an explicit platform of continuing the "modernisation" that Kinnock and Smith had begun. These were party members sick of being kicked again and again by the electorate, and were ready to accept pretty well anything as long as they got to see the words �Labour Majority� again. These members stuck with the party at least until 2003, as winning felt damn good, but secondly because of the solid policy platform Blair�s first and second governments had put in place. It�s been said over and over than the minimum wage, SureStart and the repeal of Section 28 were hardly Tory lite, but imagine the relief they must have been to members and activists to see progressive policies enacted after eighteen years of powerlessness. But New Labour�s revolutionaries, having made the case and won the membership, got complacent. They didn�t feel they needed to build a new ideology nor a theoretical basis on which to hang their policies, because �stop the Tories at pretty well all costs� was such a potent message for long time. As the victories stacked up, they felt the threat from the Conservatives had receded. Partly because there was no chance of Tory victory, people to the left of Blair who voted Labour began to talk of their disappointments, even of �betrayal�. It was the Iraq war that made it blow up among the liberal left. And who did this affect most profoundly? Their young kids. Plenty of us have lived under a Labour government for the majority of our lives. That is historically almost unprecedented. And having grown up with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, we came to see them as not just in hock to the establishment, but as the establishment. We were born at such a time without knowing Labour almost always loses. Funnily enough, it was The Sun that turned me Labour. I had a paper round from 2008, just as the crash hit, and saw the daily mauling that Gordon Brown took from the papers. I recall the incident when Brown wrote a letter of condolence to the mother of a fallen soldier in a scruffy hand, and was taken to task on the front pages before someone pointed out Brown is visually impaired. An instinctive fondness for an underdog made the choice obvious. New Labour made a terrible hash of their case to those young people who most benefited from it. I and thousands of others were far better off for having primary school classes which weren�t 40 to a room, school roofs that didn�t leak, a properly funded health service and a minimum wage when we worked our first jobs. But I was 15, with a General Election campaign in full swing, before I realised that the Minimum Wage hadn�t existed 12 years earlier. I still meet young people who don�t know its history. Along came Nick Clegg. He understood it a little better than most, at least in 2010. The LibDems had worked out that the natural radicalism of youth was not being channelled anywhere. After all, it�s hard to be burn with socialist fervour for a government that has been in power since you were two and is fighting for its existence. With a lot of empty promises, Clegg lit the touchpaper. My school held a mock election the week before the 2010 election. 77% of the pupils - including me - voted LibDem. In a Labour/Tory marginal, no less. Part of the reason for Clegg�s success was that he was the only politician telling young people they could have it better, when all the other parties were selling were hard times and a long recovery. That may have been the more honest answer, but you don�t win friends with frankness. The new generation of Labour members are the generation who grew up with Iraq and were betrayed by Clegg. That cruel lesson takes a long time to fade, and it bred cynicism to horrendous degrees. It�s led to the situation where significant number of people genuinely believed Ed Miliband was a hardcore austerian, because that�s what certain populist voices say, and the record of cynicism over memorable bad decisions makes it easy to believe. In part, it�s helped lead to the fragmentation of politics, where political engagement means signing change.org petitions on social issues rather than engaging with the idea of the country�s governance, because those battles are easier to understand, don�t involve painful compromise, and are pretty easy to win. In short, the Blair and Brown governments engendered in a lot of young people the kind of views the Conservatives have been trying to sell for decades - that government is powerless or harmful, won�t help even if it could, and that promises are always watered down and broken. That isn�t in my view fair, but we can�t pretend people don�t think it. It�s a good reason why Jeremy Corbyn - and previously the Greens - appeals to a lot of my generation. Though they think it would be nice if he won an election, they often suspect he won�t, but don�t think it hugely matters. It�s understandable why, in a way - they're almost entirely new to organised politics. When you don�t believe in the power of government and therefore don�t believe in the importance of taking control, all you can logically do is stick to your principles and hope for the best. When they hear a politician say they want to be able to win elections, they don�t all hear it as a positive. It often brings back the sting of Nick Clegg�s broken promises, their parents� anger over Iraq, and the establishment men in suits who formed the background of their childhood. As long as Labour is still fighting the battle New Labour thought they�d won, the party can�t move on as a lot of young people want. Jeremy Corbyn knows this, and one of my main criticisms of him is the tendency to claw at old wounds to shore up his own support. But it works - the people in the party who want to move on flock to him. But we have yet another new generation coming up. Next year, we will see the first cohort of Labour members born after the Iraq War. Their memories of childhood and early politics will be the rise of Cameron, the fall of Brown and the collapse of the Lib Dems. Will that change their attitude to politics? Time will tell. But if young people are Corbyn�s now, it was an allegiance that began to form before either he or they knew it, in Hyde Park on Saturday February 15th, 2003.
Long-term readers know one of my favourite games ever is Civilization III. As you busily set about conquering the world militarily or, depending on your play style, kindness, you get to sign treaties with computer-controlled opponents. It being a title from 2001, the options are a touch limited. You can put together a peace treaty if you�re concluding a war, sign a right of passage agreement, or a mutual protection pact. Signing the latter has you declaring war on anyone who attacks your ally, so it�s not something to enter into lightly. Should you break any of the treaties your civilisation will suffer a hit to its reputation, making future diplomacy more difficult and the odds of AI opponents attacking you more likely. I mention this in light of the comments made about NATO by Jeremy Corbyn, and more pointedly his refusal to say whether a Jez-led Britain would come to the aid of an alliance member attacked by Russia. In real life, just like Civthat would have dire repercussions for Britain's standing in the world, as well as doubts over its commitments to other international treaties. Now, it might be unfair he was asked this question. Can you recall Gordon Brown or Ed Miliband getting asked something similar? Well, tough. Politics isn�t fair. Jeremy�s equivocal answer probably didn�t matter a great deal to his firm supporters. After all, we know that as a committed anti-war activist and critic of US foreign policy, he wouldn�t be fussed about the abolition of NATO. But, as I�ve argued before, giving the impression of being blas� about defence and security (and therefore stoking insecurity) never sits well with the electorate, and it might reap Team Jeremy negative dividends when it comes to the leadership contest. Oh really? Hasn�t Jeremy got a commanding lead among the constituency parties? Yes, he has indeed. But as the Owen Smith camp (remember him?) have pointed out, taking together all the people to have indicated a preference so far the margin is much closer than you would expect. As Stephane notes, while Jez wracked up the CLP nominations the actual votes cast in the contest isn't as one-sided as they suggest. From the start, I�ve believed his challenge, as cobbled together and opportunist it is, Owen has stood an outside chance of winning, especially in the event of some Jez gaffe. And it�s not the membership Jeremy would have to worry about as they remain likely to back him, it�s the affiliated members in the trade unions. Readers with long memories and/or an understanding of labour movement history will know well the balance of forces in the party in the 1970s and 80s. Despite being much stronger and a touch more militant, affiliated trade unions played a conservative role in the party. Uncle John Golding in his unmissable Hammer of the Left demonstrates how bureaucratic chicanery in the party allied to having the unions onside was the path to defeating and isolating the left in the 1980s � a lesson those who would follow in his footsteps failed to grasp because, well, they don�t understand how the party works, let alone the wider labour movement. In the current leadership battle, it appears to me neither side have paid much attention to the affiliated members in the trade unions, but this would be a mistake. Having most of the unions formally endorse Jeremy was always going to happen. Likewise, Community and USDAW backing Owen was as predictable as tomorrow�s sun rise. The eyebrow raising came when the GMB�s membership plebiscite delivered the union�s support to our Owen. Sundry Corbynites cried foul. The general secretary�s preamble was �biased�. The wording on the ballot paper was tilted against Jez. And turnout was pitifully low. Oh dear. It appears the right of the PLP aren�t the only ones who don�t understand trade unions. Despite the leftist reputation unions have acquired over the last decade-and-a-half, on the whole, they�re not stuffed with right-on lefties. A trade union is an institution supported by a collective of dues-paying workers to represent their interests in the workplace. That is all a trade union is. They are not a gaggle of bolshevists pregnant with insurrection. It�s an organisation that fights on issues of economic relevance to its members, and as such can only ever be as strong as the width and breadth of that membership. It's also why trade unions were won to founding the Labour Party. The separation of politics and economics exit only in the scholastic imagination; securing the economic interests of working people requires political struggle, up to and including winning parliamentary representation and forming governments. As such, while unions can mobilise large numbers of working people and see them engage in militant action, it doesn't necessarily mean they're equally militant in their politics. For instance, I remember a comrade telling me about how her then boyfriend came from a family of militant dockers. Yet above the family dining table was a portrait of the Queen. In the seldom read but much maligned What is to be Done?, old Lenners talked about trade union consciousness, how the immediate realities of wages, speed ups, work load, managerial control, lay offs, and so on tends to focus the minds of workers around these issues. Winning wage rises or more autonomy in the work place does not put capitalism into question. The job of socialist politics is to bridge that gap, of linking the experience of working collectively to win concessions at work to the wider project of remaking society. And so, because trade union consciousness spontaneously coheres around economistic issues, there is a tendency for it to be expressed in sectional ways. For instance, workers who struck to to keep colour bars in place, the replacement of "indigenous" by migrant labour, or to keep in place the exclusion of women from workplaces are all examples where the immediate, sectional interest is at odds with the interests of labour in general. Which brings us back to the situation we find ourselves in. As readers know, Jeremy has already copped criticism from Unite and the GMB for his opposition to Trident. From a trade union perspective, it's obvious: scrapping the replacement programme means no Trident jobs, and therefore an uncertain future in the shipyards and for the communities that depend on them. It doesn't matter that Jeremy supports the redeployment of these skills and reinvestment in socially useful industries of the future. There is a tangibility to Trident whereas the alternatives, at present, are a pipe dream. From this perspective, Jeremy represents a double whammy of insecurity: in terms of their livelihoods and in terms of making the country weak in the face of foreign foes. And for those groups of workers concerned about such things, yesterday's remarks about NATO is like topic off a toxic fudge cake with radioactive sprinkles. This then is the only real possibility Owen has of winning, by banking on the less politically conscious component of the selectorate mix in the trade unions going for him because they feel Jeremy's leftyism isn't just a problem when it comes to elections, but that it appears to be against their interests. The question is whether there are enough to outweigh pro-Corbyn affiliated trade unionists, and the bulk of the membership and registered supporters. I would say no, but this is 2016, and stranger things have happened. It also presents a future problem for Jeremy if he does win. There is now a section of the trade union members that are opposed to his continued leadership, and this could prove useful to know for any future coup plotters unless his leadership ups its game. He and his team should regard the GMB vote as a warning and act accordingly.
Like cat piss on your carpet, the stench comes back regardless of what you do to it. I'm talking, in this instance, about the Labour Party and anti-semitism. Despite an inquiry that issued clear guidelines and repeat condemnation by Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Momentum, and everyone associated with the party's leadership, it will not go away. So what is going on? As I've said on occasion, if you have recurring phenomena then we're talking about social relationships, not something that can be put down to individual oddities. And, to note, just because it has become a factional football doesn't mean anti-semitism is not important or isn't happening. It is. Where then does Labour's issue with anti-semitism come from? What the party isn't is institutionally anti-semitic, in the sense it structurally discriminates and disadvantages members from a Jewish background. In fact, the argument can be turned on its head and the case made it's institutionally anti-anti-semitic, in the same way it is also institutionally anti-sexist and anti-racist. Before anyone rolls their eyes and gets a letter from compliance for it, this isn't the same as saying sexism and racism aren't problems in the Labour Party. Rather it is the banal observation that because of work done by previous and current generations of women and BME comrades, formally the party is against chauvinism and racism. Members can and do have action taken against them for making these unwelcome views known and engaging in unacceptable behaviour. And the party tries to overcome the legacies of sexism and racism through the use of shortlists, diversity training, and so on. That said, because Labour is a mass party and not an ideologically pure sect, its membership has, to greater and lesser degrees, the tendency to reflect the attitudes and prejudices of the constituency it reflects. If you like, the institutionalisation of progressive attitudes and the activists that uphold them are in a ceaseless battle against what we might euphemistically term "unreconstructed" views constantly being fed into the party from its relationship with wider society. However, this can explain why racism and sexism remain party problems but it does not account for anti-semitism. While there have been spikes of anti-semitism over the years, it hasn't had a mass base or following in British society since the 1930s. What is it about the Labour Party now that is attracting anti-semites in disproportionate numbers and to the Corbyn campaign in particular? I think it's down to a mix of naivete, stupidity, and in a number of cases, hardcore racism. Dealing with the first, Jeremy Corbyn has a long record of anti-war activity. His 33 years in Parliament have seen him take up the cudgels against British foreign policy, whether it was popular or politic or not. Similarly, he has never hidden his criticisms of US and Israeli policies in the Middle East either. Unfortunately, this kind of stance often comes with a studied silence about the countries and organisations at the receiving end of Western bombs and, in some cases, de facto united fronts with outright supporters of these regimes/outfits. These characters can be most unsavoury. You could say that some folks who are especially active in anti-war work are a little care free when it comes to associating with people who, on the one issue of opposing such-and-such a conflict, there is a shared position. And so where opposition to the criminal policies of the Israeli state are concerned, you might find people in this milieu, especially those new to it, getting rather over-enthusiastic in their denunciation of Israel's actions. They might bang on about Zionists and Zionism, might shout off about "Zios", and make clumsy, inappropriate, and offensive comparisons between the Nazis and the Holocaust and Israel and the occupation. And they do it because too few within this milieu actively challenge it. So as Jeremy has risen to prominence, this sort of clumsiness has been imported into the Labour Party and become more visible than has hitherto been the case. Something I've been worried about for a while. Overlapping with this is an anti-establishment politics at its most basic and primitive: conspiracy theorists. If porn is the main contribution the internet has made to popular culture, opening mass audiences to the idiocies of conspiracy theorising comes in a close second. You can understand the cognitive basis for these views. The world is a complex scary mess with clear winners and losers, and can appear as if a shadowy elite has it all under their thumb. It's not. There is no one at the helm, and not even being the richest nation with the most powerful military the world has ever seen can impose its will at will on the world, or defy the head winds of global economic turbulence. Conspiracies then are comforting because there's a weird form of security knowing someone's in charge, and that you stand out from the herd because your keen brain has connected the dots and cut through the bullshit. After the September 11th attacks, the conspiranoid 9/11 Truth Movement were an identifiable anti-war trend that not only peddled nonsense about remote controlled airliners and buildings pre-packed with demolition charges, but fanned the flames of anti-semitic conspiracy theorising. It was a false flag operation run by Mossad, or Jewish employees were warned to stay away from the Twin Towers on the morning of the attack being two choice examples. The problem is this sort of thinking never disappeared. It scooped up gullible adherents here and there and continued to fester on email lists, forums, and Facebook groups. And so, just like the "careless" people this variegated bunch have also joined up and used their conspiranoia to make sense of Labour's faction fight. The links between some Labour MPs and Israel via Labour Friends of Israel are "proof" they are taking orders from Tel Aviv. Some are associated with very rich people, who happen to be Jewish, and, of course, because some sitting MPs helped save the banking system from collapse they're in the pay of the Rothschilds. These entirely unwelcome elements, again, aren't drawn to Jeremy because he's one of them, but rather in the terms of their anti-semitic conspiracy theology, it's him versus the Zionist lobby and therefore deserves their support. These people are badly mistaken and seriously deluded, and I would say there are a portion of them who don't even realise they're being anti-semitic. But on those occasions it happens time and again, and despite it being pointed out to some of them carry on willy-nilly, then they have passed over into outright racism. And this brings me to the third kind, those that really do have anti-semitic issues. It doesn't matter how they arrived at this perspective, the fact is they single out Jews and attribute all kinds of social problems to them. Classic scapegoating, classic racism. Wherever they are found they should be turfed out of the party, no ifs, no buts. However, while these people do undoubtedly exist, are there others at it? While anti-semitism in wider society is diminished, there are still enough people miles away from left wing politics with axes to grind. Grabbing a Momentum twibbon and using the furore around Labour anti-semitism to vent their bilge is easy enough to do. And then there are obvious troll accounts like this and this operated by folks unknown to keep those flames fanned. Imagine being an opponent of Jeremy Corbyn and cynically using racist abuse to "prove" his support is anti-semitic. Is that the mindset of someone you'd wish to be associated with? Do you think that sort of person should have a place in the Labour Party? I am glad that most people in our movement have woken up to anti-semitism, and I hope wherever comrades find it a swift complaint to validation@labour.org.uk follows in short order. Anti-semitism is not just the socialism of fools, as August Bebel put it, but is the very antithesis of a politics founded on solidarity and collective action. It's in all our interests to be on our guard against it, and attack it wherever and whenever we can.
A guest post from my friend and comrade, Trudie McGuinness. She is a member of Labour�s National Policy Forum and sits on the International Policy Commission. In 2015, Trudie stood as Labour�s Parliamentary Candidate in Staffordshire Moorlands. Here she gives a flavour of the discussions on the IPC. You are a leadership-defying Blairite war-monger who is happy to nuke children. Or so it might be claimed if you were one of the 140 Labour MPs who voted on Monday night to renew Britain�s at-sea Trident nuclear deterrent. The Tories did not need to secure the backing of Parliament to progress fully with the plans that are already underway for the successor nuclear deterrent programme. They did so because they wanted to pick at the scab of the wounded Labour Party. The newspapers dubbed the vote the biggest rebellion against the Labour leader to date. Yet conversely, it could seen as the biggest rebellion of a Labour leader against his party�s policy in nearly one hundred years. The vote was designed to ferment further division. We are vulnerable to attack and the Tories � indeed, all onlookers � know it. What is also clear to see is that Labour Party members, supporters, MPs, MEPs and councillors are increasingly being judged in binary terms. We ourselves in the Labour Party are some of the harshest accusers. Blairite (nearly always pejorative), Brownite (shades of dull) and Corbynista (depends on your stand point and we only allow two) are the confetti currency of discussions. In contrast, the reality of life is that it is full of nuance. Nuance sits also at the heart of the nuclear deterrent debate. It is not, as Ken Livingstone when he was Chair of the International Policy Commission declared, a division between the war-mongers and the pacifists. Our unity is in wanting a nuclear-free world. Our debate is in how we get there. Labour�s NEC gave the International Policy Commission on which I sit the specific focus of reviewing party policy regarding Britain�s defence and security priorities. For the past six months colleagues and I have met and listened to fifteen experts giving insights into international strategic context, nuclear deterrence and Trident renewal and the defence sector and jobs. Their knowledge and experience carried weight. Their words and arguments carried nuance. We were all seeking answers. We all have own starting point, with our own history and prejudices. My own starting point, as a child of the Cold War, is an abhorrence of nuclear weapons. Colleagues and I were all agreed on that. The idea of one nuclear bomb going off, let alone a full nuclear conflict, reminds us anew of the need to inject pace into securing a nuclear-free world. I was not sure, though, that replacing Trident was compatible with that. Lisa Nandy MP shares this view and reasoned to vote against Trident renewal on the basis that it sets back multi-lateral nuclear disarmament. But does it? In Policy Commission meetings I have actively sought to challenge my own bias and have asked lots of questions along the way. It was notable that some of the experts, the majority of whose party political views remained unknown, looked deeply uncomfortable at the prospect of Britain failing to secure a replacement for Trident when it finally faces decommissioning. James Nixey from Chatham House and Malcolm Chalmers from the Royal United Services Institute warned of a resurgent Russia seeking to flex its military might. They warned months ago of the danger of Brexit and the impact that this would have on the strength of the EU and, by association, NATO in meeting the strategic challenges that Russia will present, especially now that it has form in Ukraine � a country which forfeited its nuclear deterrent. Insight into the changing nature of nuclear weapons possession came from RAND Europe�s Paul Cornish. Stockpiles of nuclear weapons amongst known nuclear powers have reduced significantly in the past two decades, yet more states are seeking to acquire them. The risk of the use of a nuclear weapon by a rogue state has grown. The de facto understanding on which nuclear deterrence has worked is that of mutually assured destruction. This same assumption is being applied to rogue states. With rogue elements, this is applied in hope rather than expectation. So whilst there is a high probability that nuclear weapons will deter a potentially aggressive Russia, the same surety cannot be applied to non-states. Nuance emerges. Whilst some have wavered on renewing our nuclear deterrent either on the basis of jobs lost or overall cost. I will push for a defence industrial strategy and want to see a default policy of using British workers to meet the UK�s defence and security needs. But unless a piece of equipment is needed, there can be no sensible argument for its manufacture just to keep people in jobs. As for overall cost, actual spend must be scrutinised against forecast spend. But since the defence and security of its people is the primary duty of the UK government, then if something is fundamentally needed in order to secure that aim, then it must be supplied. The central question for me was always, Is it needed? I have come to the view that it is. I want to see a nuclear-free world. I want us to fast-track efforts to secure multi-lateral nuclear disarmament. I do not, though, believe that scrapping plans for the successor programme will expedite that. I actually believe that right now it would make us more vulnerable to attack. Not since I was that girl of the Cold War have I felt that our world to be so dangerous. We face terrorism and we must meet it. We face potential conflict from global warming consequences and we must be prepared. We face cyber and technology attacks and we must scramble to stay one step ahead. We face as yet unknown threats and yet we must be ready for them. Our complex world requires complex answers. It needs nuance.
Seven years in the making and the Chilcot Report confirms virtually everything said by the anti-war movement in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. The conclusion was pre-determined, the intelligence was full of holes, the British military were ill-equipped for an adventure in the desert, it was known beforehand that chaos and terror would be the invasion's children, and last of all it was pointless and unnecessary. As we know, our soon-to-be-ex-Prime Minister acquired a gambling habit that will cost us all dear. But in a way, Dave's deliberate positioning as the heir to Blair, perhaps unbeknownst to him, led him to ape "The Master" when it came to brinkmanship. Blair's desire to "sort out" Iraq came off a roll of foreign policy "triumphs". In 1997 part of Labour's success in weaning swing voters off the Tories was the party's business-as-usual pitch. There were to be no nationalisations, no splurging of the public finances. Just careful, competent management of the economy, a commitment to "what works" (i.e. privatisation and marketisation of services), and investment in crumbling infrastructure. Furthermore, as per the celebrated deal Blair had struck with Gordon Brown, the chancellor looked after domestic issues, particularly where matters economic were concerned, while Blair had a free hand elsewhere. One of these was the determination of New Labour's "ethical" foreign policy. The West's view of the world in the late 1990s basked in the afterglow of the collapse of the USSR and its client regimes. Dictatorships in the East and Global South were giving way to nascent liberal democracies and a new world order of globalised capitalism. The West had won and now was the moment to impose a new settlement. Liberal internationalism, or "humanitarian" imperialism - depending on where you stand - was the foreign policy doctrine of choice in Washington and London, and was informed by two suppositions. The first was the "lesson" that military competition with the West destroyed the Soviet bloc and ushered in market and democracy-friendly governments in Eastern Europe - so standing up to tyranny pays. The second was the trauma of the Rwandan genocide. The so-called international community stood aside as about a million people were butchered in a state-sponsored blood rage. Victory in the Cold War showed what good interventionist policies can bring. What happened in Rwanda stood-in for the consequences of doing nothing. Therefore it had ready ideological cover to range where it pleased and was always already predisposed to meddling and intervention. Blair was fully signed up to an interventionist foreign policy to try and solve the world's problems and make it safe for freedom and, whisper it, business. To his credit New Labour were committed to the peace process in Northern Ireland, which began under John Major, and Blair and his team deserve full credit for delivering the Good Friday Agreement. One intractable problem, solved. Contemporaneously, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia boiled over into the Kosovo crisis. Previous "humanitarian" intervention had seen the bombing of Bosnian Serbs - the "baddies" in media constructions of the conflict - and had the assisted ethnic cleansing of Serbian Krajina by Croatia in 1995. When the oppression of the Albanians of the Serb provoked resistance, a low-level conflict simmered up until the late 90s, when Milosevic set in what remained of the Yugoslav army to stamp out the Kosovan Liberation Army. Under the attempt by the Western powers to bomb Belgrade to the negotiating table, Serb forces managed to expel about a million Kosovars. Blair was an enthusiastic participant in the bombing campaign, and it appeared to work. The Serbs were no match for NATO air power, they withdrew, Kosovo became a Mafia-riddled UN protectorate, key figures - including the loathsome Milosevic - ended up in The Hague, and everyone could pretend it was a triumph for muscular liberalism. Then came Afghanistan. After September 11th "something" had to be done about the Taliban. Cashing in the capital earned from the appalling attacks, the US pulled together a NATO coalition and started bombing Afghanistan barely a month after the fall of the towers. Providing air and special forces support for the Northern Alliance, the US and Britain helped drive the Taliban from Kabul in November. In early 2002 an interim government was formed out of exiles and anti-Taliban militias, backed up by American military power. A new liberal democratic constitution was ratified in 2004 and the first nationwide election since 1973 was held in 2005 on the basis of universal adult suffrage. Again, as a full participant in this war the ease with which the country appeared to be taken must have reinforced Blair's preference for interventionism. Remember, in the build up to Iraq the running sore of Afghanistan was not then apparent. The lesser known 2002 British intervention in Sierra Leone makes a more convincing argument for liberal militarism than the Kosovan conflict. After 11 years of civil war, British forces were sent in to rescue foreign nationals as a hard won peace accord collapsed. But with scarcely any debate or media coverage, the British abandoned its mandate and defeated the rebel Revolutionary United Front, a peasant-based nationalist outfit noted for its thuggish cruelty and penchant for amputating limbs. It ended the civil war, restored peace and started rebuilding the country's shattered infrastructure. Blair was then, and is still regarded fondly by large numbers of Sierra Leoneans for the "services" rendered, and helps explain why Britain did much of the leg work during the Ebola crisis. And one shouldn't forget the first Gulf War between the West and Iraq, which set the tone for the hegemonic foreign policy to come. The invasion of Kuwait by the million-strong Iraqi army, then considered the fourth largest in the world, and the subsequent coalition building and assault under US leadership had absolutely nothing to do with humanitarian concerns, but was dressed up and sold that way. Saddam Hussein wasn't removed from power, but it was a victory for democracy as the ruling Al-Sabah family scuttled back to Kuwait under Western protection. It was also in the name of humanitarian intervention that sanctions were applied and destroyed Iraq's economy, plunged its people into misery, and were occasionally bombarded under some pretext or another. This, obviously, was not Blair's doing but he inherited a set of foreign policy priorities that list Iraq and its grotesque regime the number one bogey. His toadying to Bush was as much continuity John Major as the Good Friday Agreement. Of the four, Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone have been the most enduring of Blair's accomplishments. Kosovo is still an impoverished proto-state going nowhere fast, but at least the spectre of ethnic cleansing - of Kosovan Albanians at least - has gone. And Afghanistan? Well. But for someone at the time sold on liberal interventionism, each in their way could have been read as mission accomplished. If you wanted to believe and were prepared to suspend your critical faculties, there was ample grounds for those beliefs. I don't think Blair should go to The Hague. I've never been convinced about the legalistic and procedural arguments around the invasion of Iraq, especially when the grounds for opposing it were ample. But what Blair is guilty of is criminal negligence and recklessness, and there is a 2.6 million word judgement to back that up.
Some sketchy thoughts about the murder of 50 clubbers at Pulse in Orlando. 1. It does not matter how tragic or bloody the event, there will always be people sick enough to try and score points off it. On this occasion, fast out of the gate was Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who thought it appropriate to gloat over the bullet riddled bodies of the victims. Remember, this man is supposed to be a Christian. Joining him in callous indifference and cynicism comes ex-diplomat Michael Oren. On Israel's Channel 10 this afternoon he suggested Donald Trump would be wise to exploit the murder on account of the gunman being Muslim. Lastly, it's not above the utter bams to make their own play. Each case involves total dehumanisation. Social media simultaneously bridges and enforces social distance. An appalling crime is just another item on the feed/news cycle and is to be annexed for crass position taking. The human dimension, the suffering, the grief for those left to mourn are secondary images inessential to the political meanings constructed around the act of violence. 2. The gunman Omar Mateen was a Muslim. He was not on any watch list, nor was there any indication he was a radical Islamist or, for that matter, particularly devout. Before Mateen went on his murderous rampage he apparently called emergency services and pledged allegiance to IS. With these circumstances, it's understandable the authorities are responding to it as an act of terror. Yet as Alishba points out, homophobia is a problem in Muslim communities - a point that's often impolitic for outsiders and to mention. According to Mateen's Dad, it was witnessing two men kiss that sent Mateen into a murderous fury. This is worth bearing in mind as this act is unpicked and made sense of. When these sorts of crimes are committed by Islamists, previous experiences in the West fall into the pattern of indiscriminate slaughter (London, Madrid, Paris, Brussels) or specifically targeted military personnel, such as the murder of Lee Rigby, or the 2009 killing of 13 people by Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood. This attack is more suggestive of last year's massacre by husband and wife pair Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernardino which saw the killing of 14 of Farook's work colleagues, and the Syndey cafe siege: that is murders in which Islam is a flag of convenience for motives steeped in vengeance and narcissism. Or, in this case, plain old bigotry. We should find out in coming days. 3. Cue another round of American soul searching and hand-wringing about gun control. Obama will make his usual pleas, as he does every three to six months, and the GOP will blame the club goers for not taking their weapons with them. The right wingin', bitter clingin', proud clingers of their guns - as Sarah Palin likes to call this increasingly unhinged constituency - are happy to see the death of 50 gay clubbers here, a packed cinema there, and classrooms full of kids as so much collateral for their inalienable rights. The truth is that easy access to arms is only one part of the problem. There is something deeply sick with American society. No other advanced society suffers these sorts of shootings with anything approaching this level of regularity. It cannot be explained by the size of the population - per capita they're way above similarly developed countries. Nor do other states with large gun ownership, such as Canada where over a quarter of adults own one, have the same rates of violence. That leaves something exceptional about American culture. The constant reinforcement of individual gratification and sovereignty, even as the realities of free market fundamentalism trample all over it. The absence of mass, collectivist-inspired politics, the glorification of violence, the way American media and culture splits people into competing constituencies with little emphasis on integration. From afar it appears the nearest an advanced society is to a Randian nightmare, a dysfunctional dystopia where the war of all against all too often explodes into bloody outrages.
