Right-wing Labour MPs are falling over themselves to get on TV and into the media to condemn Jeremy Corbyn for his stance on the Russian spy issue. Having been compelled to keep their peace in the period following Corbyn’s second leadership victory and Labour’s stunning result in last year’s general election, they imagine they have at last found a pretext to undermine the leadership they detest. Denied any authority to attack Corbyn on policies – because of public opinion and the overwhelming views of the Party membership – Labour’s right wing have condemned Corbyn instead over the issue of the attempted murder of former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, in Salisbury.
These ‘Labour’ MPs have enthusiastically embraced the policy of Theresa May on the question and have demanded that Corbyn do the same. In an Early Day Motion to the House of Commons, they have declared their “full support” for Theresa May over the expulsion of Russian diplomats and her embargo on the Royal family visiting Russia. While Corbyn has carefully avoided being drawn into the stampede, in contrast, Labour’s right-wing MPs have joined with the Sun, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, not to mention Boris Johnson and all manner of other assorted jingoists, on the moral high ground of British ‘security’ interests. Thus, the right-wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party has acted as an echo-chamber to the drum-beats of the rabid Tory press. They will no doubt be cheered in the House by the ‘honourable members’ opposite, as was Hilary Benn, when he called in 2015 for the bombing of Syria.
In a Tweet critical of Corbyn, ‘Labour’ MP Mike Gapes made a reference to “British values”. But this is precisely the point. To which “British values” is Gapes referring? To the British companies which bribe their way into overseas contracts and then get off scot free? To the huge increase in homelessness, poverty and insecurity since the Tories came to office? To the plundering of the NHS by privatisation and PFI scams? To the hounding of self-employed electricians for back taxes while multi-national companies pay little or nothing thanks to ‘British’ overseas territories? Labour MPs like Gapes do not have one iota of class understanding on this or any other issue. Their fundamental outlook on politics is indistinguishable from the Tories.
For socialists, it is a good working assumption that Theresa May and her ministers will be lying whenever they open their mouths on any major political issue. The Tories do not choose their friends and allies by what is morally ‘upstanding’ or ethically ‘right’, but by what best suits the interests of British capitalism. The labour movement has a set of ‘moral values’ that are based on democracy, transparency and mutual support. But the morality and “British values” of the Tories and their kept press are based on privilege, greed, profit, tax-dodging and, to hide it all from public gaze, as little transparency as possible.
We can have no illusions in Putin’s mafia state. Given Skripal’s background as a former member of the Russian secret service and his betrayal of Russian spies to the CIA, it is the Russian state or Russian agents who are more likely than anyone else to have a motive for attacking him. The Russian secret services and the Russian state are quite capable of murdering their opponents or ‘traitors’ overseas and, indeed, are likely to have done so in the past. The wars the Russians have conducted in Chechnya and elsewhere have been among the dirtiest and bloodiest anywhere and their uncritical support of the bloody Syrian regime of Asad in Damascus is further testimony to their ruthless reach for strategic military advantage.
But that said, neither should we have any illusions in the British capitalist state. Issuing from the mouths of Tory ministers and the press, there is a stink of hypocrisy over the whole issue. The British government might adopt a holier-than-thou attitude to what is allegedly a proper regard for due legal process, but it doesn’t blink an eye when its own ministers advocate the use of cruise missiles to kill British citizens who have fought for the Islamic state in Syria. No ‘due legal process’ in that case. Nor is there any condemnation of the assassinations – on the soil of a foreign state – of Hamas leaders by agents of Israel, the UK’s main ‘ally’ in the Middle East, or of the assassination, rather than capture, of Osama Bin Laden by the American military.
Some of the sanctions Theresa May has announced against Russia are little more than a joke. Some Tory ministers really seem to believe that Britain has some political ‘clout’ in the world, whereas in reality the UK is a third-rate power, economically, militarily and diplomatically. Putin will not exactly be shaking in his boots to discover that Prince William will be missing the World Cup this summer. As for the expulsion of “undeclared” intelligence agents, we have to ask, when are intelligence agents ever “declared”? Everyone knows that all diplomatic staff are intelligence agents: the Russians in London and the British in Moscow.
UK continues to export uranium Russia
But when it comes to more serious sanctions, or the lack of them, the stink of Tory hypocrisy is even worse. It is noticeable that May has not put an embargo, for example, on the ongoing British exports of depleted uranium to Russia. It took an MP from Plaid Cymru, not Mike Gapes or Stephen Kinnock, to point out that 92 per cent of British exports of this weapons grade substance, which can be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons and artillery shells, goes to Russia. Indeed, the European Parliament has repeatedly passed motions demanding a stop on the use of depleted uranium in artillery shells, and the UK has repeated rejected a ban. In 2007, the UK voted again against a United Nations General Assembly resolution to hold a debate on the effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium.
Jeremy Corbyn, to his credit, has made the connection between the Russian oligarchs and the Tory Party. These super-wealthy Russians, who achieved their enormous wealth by plundering the resources of the Russian state, have been welcomed in the UK, although they are little more than mafia dons in exile. Some of them – including friends of Putin – have made huge contributions to Tory Party funds, no doubt as a ‘thank you’ for allowing them to shelter themselves and their stolen wealth in London. It is all dirty money, but the Tories are refusing to hand back a penny of the more than £800,000 given to them by these characters in the last few years.
In the last few days the British press and TV have made frequent references to the so-called ‘deep’ state of Russia, by which we are meant to understand those parts of the Russian state that are kept hidden from public gaze. What the press do not reveal, of course, is that there is a ‘deep state’ in the UK and in all capitalist states, too. Those right-wing Labour MPs who are cheer-leaders for the Tories turn a blind eye to the fact that large parts of the British state function completely out of the public eye and beyond any democratic accountability or control. There is no public record or accountability, for example, on the research that is done on chemical and biological weapons in the British Defence facility at Porton Down, which, as it happens, is only a few miles from Salisbury. Moreover, the Tories have used the Skripal affair as a pretext to spend an extra £48m on its facilities.
The entire state apparatus in the UK: the judiciary, the armed forces, the police and the whole paraphernalia of the civil service give their allegiance to the crown. This is not an interesting historic ‘relic’ for the benefit of tourists. It is an important safeguard that is in place to protect the interests of the ruling class: the one per cent of the population who have ownership and control of land, industry, finance and the media. It is a safeguard that would be brought into play at some point in the future if a Labour government threatened the interests of the rich and powerful.
When Labour is elected – as it probably will be in the next year or two – its greatest weakness will be those MPs on the right of the Party who are not reconciled to Labour’s radical economic and social policies. Under the relentless pressure of the BBC and the mass media, Labour will be urged to abandon its programme of reforms as being ‘too costly’. The political pressure of the media will be reinforced by the economic pressure of the banks and big business to engineer an investment strike and a run on the pound. If Labour leaves the market system intact, the market system will seek to break the Government.
Under those circumstances, it will be the right wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party – using the ‘national interest’ as their pretext – who will be the first to abandon Labour. The whole affair of Sergei Skripal is a litmus test. It is a good indicator of which Labour MPs can see issues from the standpoint of the working class – in contradistinction to the standpoint of the Tories and their class – and those who cannot see any political issue at all in class terms. As we expected, it is the usual suspects.
March 15, 2018
