Every Labour-briefed media profile of Waheed Alli spins that he is basically a harmless pile of money committed to one aim: a Labour victory. Starmer has repeatedly said Lord Alli got nothing in return for his support…
But the most cursory check of Alli’s parliamentary record (something not done by gaggles of Lobby journalists) reveals that he has strident and marginal views on one of the most controversial foreign policy issues of the last few years: Syria. He boasted in a House of Lords debate:
“I have visited Syria on a number of occasions and held talks with President Assad on several.”
Alli made the comments at the height of the Syrian civil war. He was speaking as the Cameron government was blocked from bombing President Assad’s Syria – after the tyrant unleashed chemical weapons on his own people. Simultaneously, Lord Alli was urging the West against taking military action in response:
“What happens when and if the Assad Government are removed? What is left behind? From my experience, it is soldiers with guns but no paymaster… I have listened to the list of things that this action is not intended to do—the same list that the Prime Minister gave in the other place. But that has not been the mood music being played by this Government over recent months. It is that mood music that frightens us all and it should be turned down.”
The next day’s tight Commons vote against action weakened the UK’s relationship with the US and France, as well as diminishing its moral authority on the international stage. The UK was reduced to a lame duck on the issue of Assad’s murderous dictatorship. On the Labour side, Corbyn would have been very pleased with Lord Alli’s position…
What was Alli doing meeting with bloodthirsty dictator Bashar al Assad on multiple occasions? In what capacity did he make his visits to Syria? Will Keir Starmer disown Lord Alli’s position on the Assad Government? Has Lord Alli made any representations to the Labour leadership over Syria? The Alli donor scandal has just taken a very unsettling turn…
UPDATE: Tories call on Starmer to distance himself from Alli and his position on Assad’s Government. A Conservative spokesperson said:
“Not only does this revelation raise some serious questions about Lord Alli’s relationship with President Assad’s regime, it puts Keir Starmer’s judgement even further in doubt.
“Starmer should disown Lord Alli’s position on the Assad Government immediately.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no874yC1ovs
Speaking at the launch of Labour’s London election campaign, Corbyn refused to blame the Assad regime for the gas attack in Douma, instead calling on “all parties to cooperate with the UN… so we can find out exactly who delivered that chemical weapon”. Just as he refused to condemn Assad for the chemical attack at Khan Sheikhoun last year. Compare and contrast with when Russia accused Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons in 2013. Then, Corbyn immediately went on Russia Today to endorse the Kremlin line…
Last night’s statement from a Labour “spokesperson” on the Douma gas attack – no wonder no one wanted to put their name to it – was a textbook case of Corbynista equivocation in the face of evil committed by a regime opposed by the West. Corbyn’s record on Syria speaks for itself.
He accepted a free trip to meet Assad paid for by a Palestinian group which blames Jews for the Holocaust, posing with the Syrian leader alongside Jenny Tonge, and writing afterwards that the junket had shown him evidence that “the Israeli tail wags the US dog”.
He was the chair of Stop the War when they compared Assad to Churchill and repeatedly promoted Assad apologists, and he continued to back the group when they were condemned by Peter Tatchell for silencing victims of the Assad regime, and accused by Syria Solidarity UK of tacitly supporting Assad.
Following the Khan Sheikhoun gas attack, Corbyn refused to blame Assad despite Britain, the US and France all agreeing there was no doubt the regime carried it out. He did however appear on Russia Today to immediately endorse Russian reports of Syrian rebels using chemical weapons. He called for an “independent UN investigation“. When such an investigation later found the Assad regime responsible, Corbyn said nothing.
He received a briefing from Declan Hayes, a notorious Assad apologist who has denied that the regime has used chemical weapons. He dined with Marcus Papadopoulos, who claimed “there was no massacre at Aleppo“.
Corbyn’s chief aide Seumas Milne has repeatedly apologised for the Assad regime, writing that warnings of chemical attacks by Assad were a “reprise of the falsehood that paved the way for the invasion of Iraq”, praising Russian intervention in Syria as a “check to unbridled US power” and criticising Nato for working against the Assad regime.
Milne’s deputy in the leader’s office Steve Howell is even worse – he’s repeatedly openly sided with Assad and accused the West of spinning the Aleppo slaughter.
Corbyn’s favourite newspaper, the communist Morning Star, actually backed Assad’s slaughter in Aleppo as “providing aerial support to troops fighting to drive extremists out”.
Corbyn famously said that “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”. On Syria he doesn’t even pretend to be neutral.
Left-wing comedian Stewart Lee is on record as saying that Richard “Hamster” Hammond is the human he hates most. More than Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, more than ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi more than even David Cameron. So the near million signatures on the petition to Bring Back Clarkson and Top Gear to our screens must be causing him some anguish. Judging by his article for the Guardian this morning he has lost all sense of perspective…
