Even after MH17, Corbyn and his circle were pro-Russia

Published by The Times (21st June, 2019)

The scenes of death are etched in my memory. Bodies still strapped in their seats, burnt corpses, the twisted leg, the limbless trunk, the hand stretching from the grass like something out of a horror movie. These were among 298 victims of mass murder, their corpses strewn amid wildflowers and smashed suitcases in a summer field. Most painful to see was a small girl, maybe five years old, lying beside a stuffed felt toy with a smile on its face.

Few doubted that this slaughter of passengers flying from the Netherlands to Malaysia five years ago was linked to pro-Moscow insurgents in Ukraine. Yet the Kremlin lie machine cranked into action, blaming Kiev, even as a Russian-made missile launcher was towed back over the border.

Most sensible observers reacted sceptically. We had just seen Vladimir Putin’s duplicity over the theft of Crimea, denying that the ‘little green men’ I saw with Russian weapons and military vehicles had anything to do with him. Yet a few useful idiots fanned the Kremlin chaff. Now that three men linked to Russian intelligence and a militia leader have been named as suspects for these grotesque killings, we are reminded why the cabal running Labour is so unfit for office.

The Stop the War Coalition, then chaired by Jeremy Corbyn, asked if the attack was akin to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that sparked the First World War. ‘It may have been shot down by forces linked to the Ukraine government,’ its website suggested. This group then provided platforms in Britain for Boris Kagarlitsky, a Russian sociologist, to denounce western ‘lies’ over Ukraine. He denied that pro-Moscow rebels were responsible for shooting down the jet.

So it was no surprise to see Corbyn hesitate last year to condemn Russia for its lethal use of a nerve agent on British soil. His world view is so distorted by dislike of the United States that he ends up failing to defend the human rights that he claims to espouse.

Yet he is far from alone. His predecessor as chairman of Stop the War was his communist pal Andrew Murray, now a key Corbyn adviser, who also queried if Russia was responsible for the slaughter — and is now banned from Ukraine for his pro-Russian stance. Then there is Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s spin doctor, who churned out newspaper columns in 2014 echoing Kremlin smears against Nato and pro-democracy protesters.

This supine reaction to the mass slaughter of innocents on European soil should serve as a warning to anyone who hopes to see the Corbyn cabal in power.

Categorised in: Europe, home page, Politics, Russia, Ukraine