BY GARETH JOSEPH
I’m a member of the Conservative & Unionist Party. I’d like you to imagine a situation where my party leadership election were to be overwhelmed by hard-right activists.
- A new leader is elected who had spent almost 40 years supporting Loyalist terror groups in Northern Ireland, despite the close alliance my party has with non-violent Unionists.
- This man spent his political life on the backbenches, being inexplicably re-adopted by his local party, despite voting against the party in government more than even the opposition did.
- This man loved to go to campaign rallies for various hard right groups which campaigned against my party because we were too “soft”, we were “centrists”, we were “Red Tories”.
- At these rallies he called for the “complete rehabilitation” of leading 20th century Nazis and other fascists, despite their being responsible for the deaths of millions in pursuit of their extreme political ideologies.
- Two weeks after the murder of 5 Labour MPs and activists by a terror group, this man had invited the leadership of that same group into parliament for tea.
- This man then picketed the Royal Courts of Justice to “show solidarity” with the terrorists on trial for murdering those Labour MPs and activists, saying it was a “show trial”.
- This man, as a backbench MP, free to choose exactly which causes he wants to champion, chose to present a TV series on the propaganda channel run by a foreign dictatorship. This is a regime which oppresses millions of women, funds terrorism, and hangs minority groups from cranes in the streets because they don’t reflect their social beliefs. This man is paid £20,000 for this work and uses the platform to slag off the UK.
- This man, now elected to lead the Conservatives, appoints his closest friends and political soulmates to the most senior shadow positions. The new Shadow Chancellor was asked about Labour MP Yvette Cooper at a campaign meeting and said he wanted to “lynch the bitch”. He said he was just being “honest”. He previously said, “We should kill…” former Labour leader Margaret Beckett.
- This man, now hoping to become Prime Minister, claims that he actually did what he did with all these extremists groups “to bring peace”, before then claiming he had never actually met any of them despite overwhelming evidence from over 3 decades.
If that really were my party, and I was trying to excuse him, what would you do? Call me an evil c*** (the usual word thrown at me for merely being a blue), block me, never speak to me again? And you know what, that would be understandable. Not that I would. I’d not hang around in that party.
But this is what all of you trying to excuse Jeremy Corbyn are doing, and the above is a mere sample of the appalling decisions Corbyn freely took as a backbencher and is now hoping you will forget or excuse. So please don’t moralise if you support this dreadful man. You are in no position to do so.
Voting Labour is voting for Jeremy Corbyn and all the dreadful beliefs he has held for decades. Supporting or excusing Corbyn is not a moral act.
Gareth Joseph is a Barrister & Former Mayor at Ellesmere Port. His post above can be found here.