Jeremy Corbyn wants to become Britain’s next prime minister, but he has two problems. First, his Labour Party is trailing Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party by more than 10 points in the polls. Making matters worse, Corbyn just had a disastrous interview with BBC anchor Andrew Neil.
It was truly disastrous. It was so bad the Conservative Party gladly posted the full interview on its Facebook page.
It started with Corbyn denying his party’s sustained and systemic failure to address anti-Semitism. Asked whether he wanted to apologize for previous failings on the issue, Corbyn demurred. He was asked again. He demurred. He was asked yet again, and again, he demurred. In a week that has seen Britain’s chief rabbi launch an unprecedented attack on Labour’s anti-Semitism record, Corbyn’s responses were nothing short of catastrophic.
Next up, Brexit.
“Why are you remaining neutral?” Neil asked Corbyn. This is a reference to Corbyn’s Brexit strategy. If he enters No. 10 Downing Street, Corbyn says he’ll renegotiate a Brexit withdrawal deal with the European Union. The former anti-nuclear weapons campaigner says he’ll then hold another referendum offering that deal or Brexit’s cancellation. But Corbyn says he’ll remain neutral in presenting the referendum to the voters. Pushed on that neutrality, Corbyn refused to answer plainly and sought to ignore the question.
It’s a bad tactic to use against Neil. A veteran broadcaster who revels in going for the jugular, Neil was only inspired to continue his pushing. Corbyn’s Brexit confusion was crystallized.
Asked about his plans for big tax hikes on earners, Corbyn insisted that only the richest will pay more. When Neil pointed out that Corbyn’s capital gains tax changes mean his claims are clearly untrue, the Labour leader became flustered. Asked whether his plans to soak the wealthiest in Britain would lead to their exodus, and thus the collapse of his revenue streams, Corbyn didn’t seem fazed.
On his plans to massively expand spending, Corbyn said costs would be offset because he would run re-nationalized companies better than private companies do currently. This is a laughable assertion, disproven by the amazing success of privatized services that were previously languishing under government control.
Then Neil asked Corbyn how he’d pay for a new pledge to boost certain pensions. Corbyn pontificated on the motivations for his policy change. But Neil wasn’t having it. He persisted in pushing Corbyn to answer how he’d pay for it. The reluctant answer: yet more debt.
Then came the really bad part. Why, Neil asked Corbyn, do you “always give Britain’s enemies the benefit of the doubt? From [Leopoldo] Galtieri and the Falklands to Mr. [Vladimir] Putin when the Kremlin was trying to kill people in Salisbury here in England, you rarely have a good word to say about our allies; you have no time for NATO, the alliance that has kept us safe. Why should people trust you to defend our national interest?”
Each of those observations, including Corbyn’s deference to Putin, is completely correct. And Corbyn’s response was pathetic. “Because I believe keeping people safe is very important,” he said. After a few moments of rambling, Corbyn added that he takes “inequality in our society” seriously as a national security threat.
Neil asked Corbyn whether he would authorize a special forces mission against the new leader of ISIS, in the vein of the U.S. raid that killed Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Corbyn wouldn’t answer explicitly.
And that is all you need to know about Jeremy Corbyn. He would be a disaster for Britain and its special relationship with the U.S.
