After their spitefully dishonest condemnation of Jeremy Corbyn's carefully considered speech on terrorism, the ideological dogmatism of the Tory party and their cheerleaders in the right-wing press couldn't be clearer.
It's now totally clear that it doesn't matter what Jeremy Corbyn says, they'll attack it, misrepresent it, and smear it rather that ever actually admit that he's actually talking some sense.
Aside from the profound message of solidarity in the face of barbarism, the crux of Jeremy Corbyn's speech was that the "war on terrorism" is failing, and that the UK government needs to adopt a more intelligent approach to the problem of murderous Islamist fanaticism.
Corbyn very clearly stated that understanding the causes of terrorism in no way excuses or reduces the guilt of those who attack us, but lying Tory politicians like Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Ben Wallace deliberately warped and misrepresented what Corbyn said in the hope that the British public are so gullible that they'd just believe the Tory lies, rather than check the primary source for themselves.
Here's the full transcript of Corbyn's speech
Aside from blatantly lying about what he said, others have tried to attack Jeremy Corbyn as if his idea that turning places like Iraq and Libya into lawless power vacuums has increased, rather than decreased the global threat of terrorism as if such an idea is dangerously extreme leftist nonsense.
The problem for this argument is that Corbyn is absolutely right.
Well he's right if you think that the former head of MI5 is the kind of person who knows what they're talking about.
And he's right if you credit the British public with enough intelligence to not idly dismiss their understanding that creating lawless terrorist breeding grounds is likely to increase the threat of terrorism.
The expert
The former head of MI5 Eliza Mannigham-Buller wrote this in her book:
"Whatever the merits of putting an end to Saddam Hussein, the war was also a distraction from the pursuit of al-Qaeda. It increased the terrorist threat by convincing more people that Osama Bin Laden's claim that Islam was under attack was correct. It provided an arena for the jihad for which he had called, so that many of his supporters, including British citizens, travelled to Iraq to attack western forces . . . And our involvement in Iraq spurred some young British Muslims to turn to terror."
That's the exact same argument that right-wingers are abusing Corbyn for making. I wonder why they didn't howl and shriek when the former head of MI5 published this in her book?
The public
A YouGov poll found that 65% of respondents agreed with Corbyn's argument that "the wars that the UK has supported or fought are in part responsible for terror attacks against the UK" after the results were weighted 53% agreed, while only 24% disagreed.
That's more than twice as many people believe that the UK bombing other countries is in part responsible for terrorism, as those who think that UK wars have no impact on terrorism whatever.
The idea that the UK bombing other countries isn't a factor in terrorism is the unpopular minority view, and the view that it is a factor to be considered is widely-accepted "common sense".
By attacking Corbyn for saying what most people believe, the right-wingers are clearly insulting the intelligence of the majority of the public.
The sickening hypocrites
Aside from the former head of MI5 and public opinion on his side, Corbyn can also find support for his views from people like Boris Johnson, David Cameron and Tim Farron (two of whom savagely attacked him for making the exact same argument they had made previously).
Boris Johnson called Corbyn's comments "monstrous", but in the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings Boris actually said this:
"The Iraq war did not create the problem of murderous Islamic fundamentalists, though the war has unquestionably sharpened the resentments felt by such people in this country, and given them a new pretext. The Iraq war did not introduce the poison into our bloodstream but, yes, the war did help to potentiate that poison."
The lamentable Lib-Dem leader Tim Farron was another to publicly slate Corbyn's speech, but just one year ago he stood up in parliament to argue that bombing foreign countries fuels terrorism and is a danger to us all!
The sad hypocritical point-scoring little scunner!
David Cameron was another who made the exact same point as Corbyn, but with no shrieks of outrage, or sickening distortions of what he said from the Tory ranks, or the right-wing propaganda rags.
Conclusion
In attacking and smearing Jeremy Corbyn for saying what the experts agree with, what the majority of the public agree with, and most incredibly what they themselves have agreed with in the past, the Tories (and the lamentable gonk Tim Farron) have made one thing absolutely clear:
The fact they're so utterly desperate to attack and smear Jeremy Corbyn that they'll say literally anything, no matter how hypocritical, incoherent, or downright dishonest, is proof that they hold you, and me, and the rest of the public in total contempt.
They expect us to just mindlessly accept their lies and smears, to not go to the primary source and check out what he actually said for ourselves, and to not look through the stuff they've said in the past in order to expose their appalling hypocrisy.
Why on earth would anyone vote for arrogant charlatans who assume them to be pathetically gullible idiots who are incapable of thinking about anything for themselves?
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