From top: Jeremy Corbyn; Dr Julien Mercille

UK Labour Party rivals blame leader Jeremy Corbyn for the referendum vote.

But they helped create the conditions for a Brexit victory.

Dr Julien Mercille writes:

We are witnessing an attempted “coup” on Jeremy Corbyn by a “cabal” led by the right-wing of the Labour Party – those are the words of the Financial Times, which doesn’t like Corbyn at all.

We’ve heard over and over that Corbyn “lacks ideas” or “has the wrong ideas for Britain” or “is not a good leader”.

And that, by implication, those seeking to remove him would provide “good leadership” and “a strong opposition to the Conservatives”.

Really?

A quick look at the policies espoused by Corbyn and his allies versus those supported by the anti-Corbyn gang should settle the debate quickly.

Let’s compare how the Corbyn camp voted on the Iraq War, Trident nuclear renewal, and austerity, key policies for Britain.

I’ve chosen to compare, on one hand, Corbyn and two of his strong allies (John McDonnell and Diane Abbott) and those leading the charge against him and who are trying to convince us they’d be better leaders for Labour (Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper, Angela Eagle, Margaret Hodge, Liz Kendall, Owen Smith, Tom Watson).

First, let’s take the Iraq War, a criminal enterprise by any account.

In March 2003, a vote was taken in the British Parliament to go to war with Iraq. The Corbyn team all voted NO to war on Iraq, while the anti-Corbyn team all voted YES to war on Iraq:

Corbyn: NO
Diane Abbott: NO
John McDonnell: NO

Hilary Benn: YES
Yvette Cooper: YES
Angela Eagle: YES
Margaret Hodge: YES
Tom Watson: YES
Liz Kendall: not an MP yet
Owen Smith: not an MP yet

The Chilcot investigation on the British government’s involvement in Iraq will be released this Wednesday. Hopefully it will strongly attack Tony Blair and the Labour MPs such as those who now want to oust Corbyn for taking the country into an illegal and immoral war.

The Chilcot report should act as a cold shower on the anti-Corbyn team’s efforts to pretend they’re sensible leaders.

It is also plausible that they launched their coup ahead of the report’s release, hoping to unseat Corbyn before the bad press of Chilcot tarnishes their reputations.

Second, the British government has sought to replace the Trident nuclear system based on submarines with a modernised system, at a cost evaluated at anywhere between £25 billion and £100 billion. Think of what could be done with those funds if they were not spent on nuclear weapons.

The Corbyn team has opposed the replacement of Trident, while the anti-Corbyn team has supported it. For example, let’s look at this vote on 20 January 2015 to scrap Trident:

Corbyn: YES, scrap Trident
Diane Abbott: YES
John McDonnell: YES

Hilary Benn: (absent for this vote but voted to renew Trident in other votes)
Yvette Cooper: NO, renew Trident
Angela Eagle: NO
Margaret Hodge: (absent for this vote but voted to renew Trident in other votes)
Tom Watson: (absent for this vote but voted to renew Trident in other votes)
Liz Kendall: NO
Owen Smith: NO

Third, on economics, Corbyn’s team has a strong record of opposing senseless and cruel austerity, while the anti-Corbyn team has endorsed it to a greater extent.

For example, in 2015 the David Cameron government proposed a big austerity bill to cut £12 billion in welfare.

The bill sought to reduce the household welfare cap from £26,000 to £23,000, abolish legally binding child poverty targets, and cut child tax credits, cut housing benefits for young people, and cut the Employment and Support Allowance.

The Labour Party leadership (Hariett Harman was interim leader at that time) directed its MPs not to oppose the Tory bill in order to show that Labour understood that government had to restrain spending.

But 48 out of 216 Labour MPs rejected that directive and voted against the austerity bill while the other Labour MPs did not oppose it (they abstained). The vote was as follows:

Corbyn: OPPOSED austerity bill
Diane Abbott: OPPOSED
John McDonnell: OPPOSED

Hilary Benn: ABSTAINED
Yvette Cooper: ABSTAINED
Angela Eagle: ABSTAINED
Margaret Hodge: ABSTAINED
Liz Kendall: ABSTAINED
Tom Watson: ABSTAINED
Owen Smith: ABSTAINED

In other words, the anti-Corbyn team blames Corbyn for the Brexit victory, but in fact, it is those who have supported austerity who have created the conditions for the Brexit victory.

Indeed, Brexit was driven in large part by anti-immigrant feelings which could only take root in a climate of economic recession where people are more likely to blame immigrants for lack of employment opportunities and public services.

At the time of the vote, John McDonnell, annoyed by the speeches in Parliament trying to justify the cuts, declared:

“I would swim through vomit to vote against this bill. And listening to some of the nauseating speeches in support of it, I might have to”

The above exercise of comparing the record of Corbyn’s team to that of the anti-Corbyn team can be replicated for other policies to obtain a more systematic picture. In this short article, I’ve chosen a few that were central to governing Britain.

But the lesson seems clear. Next time you hear in the media that “Corbyn has the wrong ideology” but that its challengers are “impressive” and “level-headed”, ask yourself this question:

Should we support team Corbyn, or those who sided with war criminals, the tools of war, and austerity?

Julien Mercille is a lecturer at University College Dublin. Follow him on Twitter: @JulienMercille

Top pic: Reuters