Tariq Ali on UK Elections, Jeremy Corbyn and the Rise of the Extreme Right

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. As president Trump heads to London for a NATO summit, we turn now to look at the upcoming British elections. The December 12th election pits right-wing Prime Minister Boris Johnson against the socialist Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn recently unveiled an ambitious election manifesto promising to transform Britain and resuscitate its public sector. The plan proposed a $100 billion tax increase on the wealthy to fund investment in infrastructure as well as increased spending on education and healthcare. This is Corbyn speaking in the central English city of Birmingham last month.

JEREMY CORBYN: Labour’s manifesto is a manifesto for hope. That is what this document is, a manifesto that will bring real change, a manifesto that’s full of popular policies that the political establishment has blocked for a generation. But you can’t have it. At least that’s what the most powerful people in Britain and their supporters want you to believe.

AMY GOODMAN: Last month, Labour leader Corbyn and Prime Minister Johnson sparred on Brexit during a live television debate. This clip begins with Johnson.

PRIME MINISTER JOHNSON: Mr. Corbyn is trying to conceal the void at the heart of his Brexit policy and refusing to answer the question of which side — which side he would take. Because the public still — the public have a right — the public have a right to know.

MODERATOR: OK, thank you. Mr. Corbyn, just very briefly, Mr. —

JEREMY CORBYN: I’ve made the position clear — we will have a referendum, we will have negotiation and we will abide by that result.

PRIME MINISTER JOHNSON: Let’s be — the union is of course the most important thing, just to answer the question [inaudible]. The union — and it’s a fantastic thing.

For the chaotic coalition the team would comprise in the second referendum.

MODERATOR: Thank you. OK, thank you. Let’s allow him to respond. Can you rule it out [inaudible]?

JEREMY CORBYN: [Inaudible] nine years of chaotic coalitions already.

AMY GOODMAN: That was British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Prime Minister Boris Johnson debating last month. Well, I recently spoke with Tariq Ali in London, the noted historian, activist, filmmaker, author and editor of the New Left Review. I began by asking Tariq Ali to elaborate on what’s happening in this snap election.

TARIQ ALI: Amy, the first thing you have to understand is that the British Conservative Party has effectively been taken over by the extreme right wing inside that party, and they are waging a very right-wing campaign. On Brexit, their own position has changed from when they were threatening a no-deal Brexit to now accepting a compromise with the European Union. And Boris Johnson has decided to center the election on Brexit because he thinks he can convince people that every other politician in the land, especially Jeremy Corbyn, will never push it through.

The line Corbyn has taken is that whatever deal he achieves with the European Union will be put to the people and they will be given a choice again. Now, this is unpopular with some of his own supporters, but that’s the deal. However, what Corbyn has been arguing is that he refuses to fight the election on Brexit or no Brexit. He says this election has to be fought on real social and economic issues. And this is why he unleashed this radical social democratic program at Birmingham not so long ago, which is the most radical program Labour has had for a very long time, indeed for many, many decades.

Renationalizing the railway industry, taking back control of water so it’s no longer in the hands of the privatizers, making sure that the National Health Service is properly funded and that the privatization measures which were infiltrated into this health service by both Tony Blair and David Cameron will come to an end. Free higher education for all, et cetera, et cetera. It’s a radical reforming manifesto. And this is now what the debate is going to be about.

And interestingly enough, amongst the undecided people, Corbyn scored a victory with that television debate, which you just showed an excerpt from. Not one of the great confrontations in British political history, but in any case, he scored well with unattached voters. So he knows that there’s everything to play for. And Corbyn is at his best when he’s campaigning, when he’s talking to ordinary people. He hates mainstream television and how it distorts politics and how it manipulates. And and who can blame him? So he’s at his best when he’s talking to people on the streets or big meetings or answering questions from real people.

And we hope that he will become the largest party in Parliament, if not something more than that. I mean, the campaign is now after a couple of weeks beginning to pick up. And when I last spoke to Julian Assange and I said to him, “Do you see any hope at all, Julian?” he said, “The only hope is a Corbyn government, Tariq.” Because he said, “I can’t depend on the English judiciary.” So on many, many levels — civil liberties, women’s rights, racism — I think this is the campaign that we’re going to see, and whether it enthuses enough people, who knows.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq, I wanted to play for you British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s response to the Labour Party’s election manifesto that the Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn just unveiled. Prime Minister Johnson was speaking during a campaign visit to a building site in Bedford, England.

PRIME MINISTER JOHNSON: — any credibility whatever, because the whole of the heart of Labour’s manifesto — this was the moment. You know? It was lights, camera, action. Corbyn comes center stage. Drum roll. And he completely misses his cue. Because what we want to know is what is his plan to deliver Brexit, and what’s the deal he wants to do? And which side would he vote on that deal? And we still don’t know. Until we have answers to those questions, until we get Brexit done, none of this carries any economic credibility whatever.

AMY GOODMAN: So that’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Tariq Ali, your response?

TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, it’s not surprising. Jeremy predicted this would be his response. And the answer to Boris Johnson is this: Even the long years Britain has been in the European Union, these policies have slowly been developing. If Britain is or isn’t in the European Union, from this point of view, it doesn’t matter. These are Labour’s policies and they’re going to push them through regardless of what happens in relation to Brexit. The money is there. The rich are there — the billionaires to be taxed. This is something on which Corbyn is not going to retreat.

And quite honestly, [inaudible] that Corbyn’s election manifesto is a common sense manifesto unless you’re completely on the right or, you know, sort — racist or whatever. I think it’s going to — it’s not going to be easy for Boris to totally demolish this case. That’s the big thing which Labour is banking on.

AMY GOODMAN: So talk about Brexit and talk about Boris Johnson’s view and Jeremy Corbyn’s view and what people will be basing their decision on in this snap election.

TARIQ ALI: Well, Boris’s view is as follows — that there was a referendum agreed to by all the political parties. In this referendum, the pro-European Union parties lost and a majority of the British public, the highest number of people to vote for anything in this country ever, over 17 million people, over 50% voted to quit the European Union. And governments have been prevaricating. But the point is this. This is true, by the way. It’s not false.

But this referendum was pushed through by the Conservative Party to deal — David Cameron thought it was one way of getting rid of Boris and his gang because he was convinced the British people would vote to remain in the European Union. Theresa May, who succeeded Cameron, is also pro-EU and she wasted a lot of time in getting a deal agreed. So Boris’s campaign for conservative voters is very simple. The people voted; the politicians obstructed. It’s the people versus Parliament issue. He’s not spelt it out in these terms yet, but that is what lies behind the thing.

Corbyn’s position is this. It’s three years now. People are fed up of this business. We should settle it for once and for all. So we should have a new referendum to see if people still believe in what they voted for three years ago. And in this referendum, they will be offered two choices: Labour’s Brexit deal or a choice if they’ve changed their minds to remain in the European Union. Now, many people, including Labour supporters, feel that Corbyn should be defending — and they voted for Brexit, especially working-class voters in the north of England — that Corbyn should just implement it. His view is time has passed. We should have a new referendum.

The way the campaign is fought will determine what people think, Amy. And so far, Labour’s made its position clear on Brexit, which obviously Johnson doesn’t like, but is now fighting the campaign on issues central to the everyday lives of working people and ordinary people in this country. Ken Loach’s latest film shows how zero-hours and what neoliberalism has done to the lives of young people. And everyone knows this. This is the experience of people in most parts of the country. So if this message can be got across over the next few weeks, I’m moderately optimistic, I think. I think Corbyn could win.

The interesting thing is that the Liberal Party, the Liberal Democrats, are waging such a right-wing anti-Corbyn campaign that now they’ve said that they’ll join a coalition with the Conservatives, Boris Johnson, if Boris just agrees to another referendum, which is very unlikely. And the Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, though I’ve nicknamed her Jo Strangelove, attacks Corbyn for not saying in public that if prime minister, he would press the nuclear button, saying he’s a pacifist, he’s this and he’s that, making a nuclear war one of the minor issues in this campaign. So, I mean, I think she will lose votes for saying that and I think she might even lose her own seat in Scotland, which is very hostile to nuclear weapons. But it’s a crazy campaign [inaudible].

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to also ask you about something else that came up in the debate between Johnson and Corbyn, and that’s the whole issue of Prince Andrew. Prince Andrew saying Wednesday he’ll withdraw from public duties amidst mounting public anger over his longtime friendship with the now deceased serial sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

In a BBC interview that aired Sunday. Prince Andrew denied accusations by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who says she was sexually trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sex with the prince when she was 17 years old. A photo released by Giuffre shows Prince Andrew standing beside her with his hand around her bare stomach with Epstein’s longtime confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell in the background. I just wanted to go to Prince Andrew in BBC when he was asked if he was sorry for his longtime relationship with Epstein.

EMILY MAITLIS: Do you regret the whole friendship with Epstein?

bq: PRINCE ANDREW: Now, still not, for the reason being is that the people that I met and the opportunities that I was given to learn either by him or because of him were actually very useful.

AMY GOODMAN: This was just an astounding response that Buckingham Palace is trying to take back now, given the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein as a serial sexual predator and sex trafficker. So I wanted to turn to a part of the live TV debate between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his rival, Jeremy Corbyn. The moderator asked if the monarchy is fit for purpose. This is Corbyn’s response, followed by Johnson’s.

MODERATOR: Is the monarchy fit for purpose? Jeremy Corbyn.

JEREMY CORBYN: Needs a bit of improvement.

MODERATOR: Mr. Johnson.

PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON: The institution of the monarchy is beyond reproach.

JEREMY CORBYN: Before we discuss Prince Andrew, I think we should discuss the victims that are there because of what Epstein was doing. And I think there are very, very serious questions that must be answered, and nobody should be above the law.

PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON: I think all our sympathies should be obviously with the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, and the law must certainly take its course.

AMY GOODMAN: Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn responding to this question, with Jeremy Corbyn talking about the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew’s response that he could not be sorry for his longtime relationship with Jeffrey Epstein because he’d learned so much from him. Tariq Ali?

TARIQ ALI: I wonder what Prince Andrew actually learned from Epstein, Amy. I heard this interview, and it’s puzzling. Did he learn the benefits of pedophilia? Did he learn what it is to assault young women who’ve been bought or brought in for to serve these people? I mean, what that interview revealed is that Andrew is like many other rich people — stupid, wanting more money, more greed, thinking they are entitled to do what they want with young women or young men or whoever. I mean, they feel no one can touch them. They are untouchables. And when they’re exposed, then they squirm.

But while others involved have apologized or tried to, this fellow didn’t even attempt anything like that. He didn’t know what to say. I mean, I’m sure he was briefed. He was taught what to do. There were divisions within Buckingham Palace as to whether he should do the interview at all. One of his people resigned because she said, “You shouldn’t be doing this interview.” And then he comes up. Why? Why do you want to bother?

I mean, quite honestly, the monarchy is long past its sell-by date. And I think after her majesty the queen passes away, there will be a debate on whether to continue this farce or not. I mean, basically it’s a tourist attraction so that lots of people can come from the United States and watch the, you know, guards dressed in red, marching up and down. And that could be organized as a virtual thing. You don’t need a living monarchy to do that.

AMY GOODMAN: What is Jeremy Corbyn’s view of the monarchy? Does he think it should be abolished?

TARIQ ALI: Well, about several years ago, Jeremy’s mentor, Tony Benn, proposed a bill in Parliament to democratize Britain, which was cosigned by Jeremy. And the first item on the bill was that Parliament should abolish the crown, i.e. the monarchy. It should democratize the judiciary. It should abolish the House of Lords. Jeremy is a signed-up member to Benn’s Democratic campaigns. And I think they haven’t had time to deal with this as yet. It’s a bit sad that Tony Benn is no longer with us because he would have pushed this Democratic agenda through. And at its heart lies the monarchy and the House of Lords, and it’s high time they were abolished. They will be sooner or later, but it’s taken a long time.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali, the noted historian, activist and author. When we come back, he talks about uprisings around the globe. Stay with us.