The juvenile hypocrisy of Corbyn over Trump
Jeremy Corbyn is the worst kind of hypocrite. The Leader of the Opposition preaches a holier-than-thou politics of compassion, and never tires of attributing the basest of motives to his political opponents, while leading a party riven with anti-semitic hate. He claims to be working for the many not the few, and yet surrounds himself with a narrow clique of far-left activists and their children. Now, he has decided to boycott a banquet at Buckingham Palace for the occasion of Donald Trump’s state visit this June.
It should go without saying that this is juvenile in the extreme. The banquet is to be a state occasion, with the president a guest of the Queen and the leaders of opposition parties invited as a matter of course. Mr Trump will be visiting the United Kingdom as president of the United States and should receive a welcome commensurate with the honour and dignity of that office.
This principle Mr Corbyn appeared to understand when Chinese president Xi Jinping came to the UK on a state visit in 2015. Then, the Labour leader was happy to attend a banquet in honour of the leader of an oppressive communist dictatorship, which routinely imprisons its political opponents, without theatrical complaints about the pomp and ceremony accorded to Mr Xi. Why not the popularly-elected leader of one of the world’s greatest democracies?
Perhaps we should be used to Mr Corbyn’s double standards by now. He may say that his problem is with Mr Trump’s views, which admittedly can be controversial, but he has shown every evidence of a near-pathological dislike of the United States itself and has a long history of supporting its opponents. He has called the terrorist groups Hamas and Hizbollah his “friends”, while rarely missing an opportunity to criticise the only truly liberal democracy in the Middle East, Israel. Incidentally, he once boasted of having a “takeaway dinner” with the head of Hamas in Gaza in 2010.
Mr Corbyn’s views are dangerous to the security of this country. The United States is the UK’S closest ally and security partner, and the special relationship is sustained both by mutual interests but also mutual trust between our respective leaders. Our alliance has had its difficult patches, but if Mr Corbyn were ever to become Prime Minister and put his odious opinions into practice, the damage could be irrecoverable.