Although he did not touch on foreign policy in any detail during his campaign, Jeremy Corbyn, the newly elected leader of the Labour Party, has in his long career in politics been associated with international movements for peace, against war and nuclear militarisation, and for human rights.
As one of the conveners of Stop the War campaign, he opposed the West’s war against Iraq, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and in more recent times, has been a strong voice in urging for greater participation by the British government in offering asylum for refugees who are entering Europe in thousands.
Some of these issues have taken Mr. Corbyn to India. He attended the World Social Forum gathering in Mumbai in January 2004. In his engaging account for the Morning Star on the conference from Mumbai, Mr. Corbyn writes among other things about those who joined the WSF march. ‘The Dalit peoples who have suffered untold discrimination despite the Indian constitution’s claim to protect them march in huge numbers, and many union groups from miners to forestry workers march against re-structuring and privatisation. The surviving victims of the killings and mayhem in Gujarat tell what it is like to be the victims of the hordes goaded on by right wing xenophobic politicians.”
>A new Left rises in the West
A wave of social democratic movements is surging across the developed world, and its vision for equality, education and the environment is challenging established politics, says FEROZE VARUN GANDHI.
>The return of ideology
Tired of being fed the same bland diet in different forms, voters in the U.K., unlike in India, are demanding clearer choices, and there is a clamour for more ideological politics, says HASAN SUROOR
As chair of the trustees of the U.K.-based Dalit Solidarity Network, he has spoken in the British Parliament on Dalit oppression, and in January 2012 compared Dalit oppression to apartheid. “Apartheid in South Africa was wrong, and Dalit discrimination is equally wrong anywhere in the world.”
Gujarat riots In 2003, the new Labour leader was one among 34 MPs who signed an Early Day Motion (EDM) on the Gujarat riots of 2002. The motion condemned the “authorities in Gujarat [who] are leading the efforts to dismantle a secular India which has consistently ensured that devotees of the world’s eight major religions and others can live in relative harmony.” It also asked the British government to work within the U.N. and the Commonwealth “to prevent further deterioration in relations between the varied communities of present day India.” Earlier this year, he was a signatory on two EDMs, the first on human rights violations in Kashmir, and the second on human rights violations in India.
| Leaders of the Labour Party (1906–2015) | |
|---|---|
| Keir Hardie (1906-1908) | Arthur Henderson (1908-1910)(1914-1917)(1931-1932) |
| George Nicoll Barnes (1910-1911) | Ramsay MacDonald (1911-1914) (1922-1931) |
| William Adamson (1917-1921) | J. R. Clynes (1921-1922) |
| George Lansbury (1932-1935) | Clement Attlee (1935-1955) |
| Hugh Gaitskell (1955-1963) | George Brown (1963) |
| Harold Wilson (1963-1976) | James Callaghan (1976-1980) |
| Michael Foot (1980-1983) | Neil Kinnock (1983-1992) |
| John Smith (1992-1994) | Margaret Beckett (1994) |
| Tony Blair (1994-2007) | Gordon Brown (2007-2010) |
| Harriet Harman (2010) | Ed Miliband (2010-2015) |
Published - September 13, 2015 12:43 am IST
