Angela Rayner’s appearance on Marr’s LBC show last night was one for the ages. As if no one else remembers the last five years, Rayner suggested without a hint of irony that a Corbyn government “would have given” missiles to Ukraine, and that Jeremy was “very clear on his condemnation of Putin, long before it was popular to do that”. It’s amazing she kept a straight face.

Never mind the fact that Corbyn insisted the UK government send Novichock samples back to Russia for their own “testing” after Salisbury. Just ten days before the invasion of Ukraine last month, Corbyn signed this statement from the Stop the War coalition:

“…the British government has sent arms to Ukraine and deployed further troops to Eastern Europe, moves which serve no purpose other than inflaming tensions and indicating disdain for Russian concerns. It has also declared that Ukraine has a “sovereign right” to join NATO, when no such right exists to join it or any other military alliance.”

“We refute the idea that NATO is a defensive alliance, and believe its record in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Libya over the last generation, not to mention the US-British attack on Iraq, clearly proves otherwise.”

Russian concerns? Which way would Jeremy’s missiles have been firing?

UPDATE: Readers have also pointed out that elsewhere in the same interview Rayner also accused Putin of using nuclear weapons on British soil.

Arriving an hour late for the Stop the War rally, Corbyn might have hoped it would at least go smoothly after his best mate John McDonnell dropped out over Labour’s threat to withdraw the whip. Guido was on hand however to catch the astonishing moment a pro-Ukrainian protestor was kicked out by high-vis jacketed organisers, as Corbyn sat on and watched.

As irony goes, Stop the War delivered their bilge of nonsense on a stage above which was the inscription “to thine own self be true”…

John McDonnell may be just hours away from losing the Labour whip, as Sir Keir is reportedly preparing to finally boot him from the party if he makes a scheduled appearance at a Stop The War rally this evening. A rally that’s also set to feature the (inevitable) appearance of the independent MP for Islington North, who admittedly has nothing left to lose by now…

It follows Sir Keir’s stern warning to his MPs on Monday that any member who draws a “false equivalence” between NATO and Russia would immediately be shown the door. Last week, Starmer also demanded all 11 Labour MPs who’d signed Stop the War’s letter withdraw their names for the sake of unifying the party in favour of NATO. Eventually, they all complied. Corbyn’s name is still on there, obviously.

McDonnell has so far refused to comment on whether he’s still planning to show up to the rally this evening. According to HuffPo, a Labour source said:

“If he goes, he’ll lose the whip. Any Labour MPs who speak at anything that is anti-Nato from now on are likely to be out.”

The event starts at 6.30 pm. The clock’s ticking…

UPDATE: McDonnell has told LabourList he’s pulling out of the event:

“I have seen all the speculation about my attendance at tonight’s Stop the War meeting and reports of threats if I do. My response is that people are dying on the streets of Ukrainian cities. This is not the time to be distracted by political arguments here […] Nothing is more important at this time. Nothing should distract us from that. So I won’t feed into that distraction by going tonight.”

Poor Jeremy’s been left high and dry…

Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn still isn’t withdrawing support of the anti-NATO loons over at the Stop the War coalition. In a new seven minute diatribe released today by his Peace and Justice Project, Corbyn once again insisted the group is right about everything, finally attacking Starmer by name and insisting there is “no evidence” the group is pro-Putin. He also claimed those making “unpopular” claims today are “sometimes seen as the prescient voices of the future“. He’s won the argument, even if no one else thinks so…

He does at least provide evidence of his shrewd political judgement: his response to the Salisbury poisoning. Pointing out how he made a few Commons statements on Russian dirty money, he skates over his demands to send the Russians a Novichok sample to conduct “their own tests” and give their opinion on whether the attack was actually their fault. Guido can forgive the old boy a memory lapse…

Sir Keir used a Times interview this morning to try and rebrand Labour’s reputation on defence after the disastrous years of Jeremy Corbyn. He tells the paper that Corbyn was “wrong on NATO and emphatically wrong on the Salisbury poisonings”; on Ukraine he says it’s “very difficult to find a dividing point” between Labour and the government:

“I’m absolutely convinced that among the tools in the Russian armoury is divide, divide, divide. The more they sow division, either between us and our allies or within [the] country, then only Russia benefits from that.”

While Sir Keir has proved he’s able to talk the centrist talk, as on other issues he’s failing to walk the walk. While espousing bellicose views to the media, he continues to have an appointed “Shadow Minister for Disarmament” in his shadow cabinet, a role created by the white flag-waving member for Islington North in 2016 and a title held by the same man happy to serve as a defence minister under arch-abstentionist Corbyn, Fabian Hamilton.

The role of shadow minister for disarmament was created by CND supporting Corbyn to create a “change in attitude” in Labour’s foreign police approach; a change in attitude that will tonight see Corbyn speak at a ‘Stop the War’ meeting seeking to blame NATO for the crisis in Ukraine. 

If Sir Keir wants voters to take him seriously, perhaps he should ditch this Trotskyist shadow cabinet role and stick to the bread and butter defence policies the public want to see…

Lunatic Socialist Workers Party front group organisation Stop the War has unironically urged Britain to pay reparations to the Taliban in order to advance “the rights of the Afghan people”. Current patrons of the group include Diane Abbott, George Galloway, Tariq Ali and recently expelled from the Labour Party, Ken Loach. A statement posted on the Stop the War website pressed the British government to:

“… take a lead in offering a refugee programme and reparations to rebuild Afghanistan, an act which would go a great deal further in advancing the rights of the Afghan people, women in particular, than continued military or economic intervention in the fate of the Afghanistan.”

Stop the War is yet to explain how offering money to the Taliban regime, which is infamous for (amongst other things) denying women the right to an education, stoning ‘criminals’ to death, and throwing gay people from tall buildings, will in any way advance the rights of “Afghan people”. “Stop the War” invariably take the side of those waging war on the West…