CORBYN’S STANCE OVER UK NERVE AGENT ATTACK

The leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, has suggested he is the victim of a “McCarthyite” witch-hunt as he faces a growing backlash over his refusal to blame Russia for the Salisbury spy poisoning.

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry – a key Corbyn ally – and shadow defence secretary Nia Griffith broke ranks to accept it was beyond doubt that Moscow was responsible.

But instead of backing down, the Labour leader defied his critics by warning the Prime Minister not to “rush way ahead of the evidence” in the “fevered” atmosphere of Westminster.

In a move that will fuel backbench anger over his weak stance, Mr Corbyn urged the Government to take “a calm, measured” approach and said we should not “resign ourselves to a new Cold War”.

He suggested the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq showed government claims that Russia was behind the attack may be wrong.

In an article for The Guardian, he wrote: “To rush way ahead of the evidence being gathered by the police, in a fevered parliamentary atmosphere, serves neither justice nor our national security.

“Labour is of course no supporter of the Putin regime, its conservative authoritarianism, abuse of human rights or political and economic corruption, “he wrote. “That does not mean we should resign ourselves to a new ‘Cold War’ of escalating arms spending, proxy conflicts across the globe and a McCarthyite intolerance of dissent.”

Senator Joseph McCarthy became infamous in the 1950s for carrying out an anti-Communist “witch-hunt” at the start of the Cold War.

Mr Corbyn backed Mrs May’s decision to expel 23 diplomats from Britain, but called for diplomacy.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson branded the Labour leader a “conspiracy theorist” for his continued refusal to fully accept Russia was behind the attack.

He said: “The scientists at Porton Down are the very best in the world. Their knowledge, their expertise so clearly points to one direction and you really do have to be a conspiracy theorist of the wildest kind to believe that there is anything other than fact about the statement that Russia has done this.”

Shadow defence secretary Miss Griffith told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: “We very much accept what the Prime Minister said, this is a very sophisticated nerve agent, and that Russia is responsible for this attack.”

Mrs Thornberry said: “The Russian government has been given every opportunity to provide any credible, alternative explanation as to how its nerve agents came to be used in this attack, but they have not even tried to do so.”

It is understood around 30 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion tabled by Labour backbencher John Woodcock “unequivocally” accepting the “Russian state’s culpability”.

 

SENATOR Joseph McCarthy lent his name to the so-called “witch-hunts” that were carried out against suspected Soviet sympathisers living in America.

The Senator for Wisconsin fuelled the “Red Scare” in 1950 by claiming he had a list of 205 Communists manipulating government policy. More than 2,000 government employees were sacked with little proof and Hollywood writers, directors and actors were blacklisted.

In 1954, he outraged President Eisenhower when he investigated Communist influence in the army.

He lost his public standing after military hearings were broadcast on state media. Lawyer Joseph Welch asked him: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” Three years after the hearings he died of liver failure.