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The hypocrisy of Boris Johnson over the Stop the War Coalition is sickening

October 14, 2016 at 1:01 am

A new media war has started against the Stop the War Coalition, the leftist network of groups formed to oppose the Iraq invasion back in 2003. “The Stop the West Coalition is getting worse – and now it’s running the Labour Party” read the opening salvo by, tellingly, Mark Wallace, a former big business lobbyist turned Executive Editor of ConservativeHome, the main “grassroots” Tory-run news website.

Ever obedient to those he hopes will one day give him a more senior role within Conservative Central Office, Wallace was gleefully amplifying words put forward by Ann Clwyd the previous day, during an emergency debate on Syria. Clwyd, lest we forget, is the Labour MP who fabricated stories about Saddam Hussein feeding his opponents through industrial shredders. So, other than having a shared interest in lying for political purposes, why was Wallace so eager to echo the thoughts of a nominal opponent?

Lecturing from the backbenches, Clwyd had called for “two million, three million, four million” to protest outside the Russian embassy, day after day. “Let’s show what we think of their actions in Syria and their refusal to bring peace to that country,” she intoned. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was in heated agreement with the lady on the opposition benches. “I’d certainly like to see demonstrations outside the Russian embassy,” he claimed. “Where is the Stop the War Coalition at the moment?”

Cynics might say that this was yet another example of a Labour MP deliberately undermining her party leader. Jeremy Corbyn used to chair Stop the War and was a co-founder; Clwyd played her part by tossing the Tories a question which Johnson could then exploit. The slavish media followed up with grovelling predictability. Plus ça change in post-Brexit Britain, which I hear was a victory against “the Establishment”; really?

The Establishment onslaught against Stop the War continued. The less than subtle and entirely predictable Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, appeared on the Telegraph’s website saying, “Stop the War ‘oppose the West’ and support dictators. They are traitors.” I presumed out of politeness that Pollard might know the pernicious dangers that lurk whenever an accusation of dual loyalty against a fellow citizen looms. I was mistaken.

The following morning, Ian Birrell — writing in the Sun, a right-wing tabloid whose slavish loyalty to the Conservative Party is well-known (save for a brief spell supporting Tony Blair) — tediously labelled Stop the War as “loud-mouthed leftists”. He stooped low to call one of the leading organisers a “twerp of a Trotskyite.” Gordon Rayner, the chief reporter at the Telegraph, then very helpfully produced a hit-piece: “Labour alarm at Stop the War Coalition figures’ growing influence over party” cited no Labour sources whatsoever, despite the headline. Instead, Rayner provided his own slanted analyses of the various key figures in Stop the War, which include Corbyn, his new shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, his controversial director of strategy Seumas Milne and other senior “Corbynistas”.

What’s the problem with Stop the War? The first allegation levelled against it is that the coalition is heavily influenced by Trotskyists, straighter socialists and mainstream Islamist thinking. An honest look reveals all of this to be true, although in pluralist Britain it should not matter who you are, but what you say. The coalition’s association with the Socialist Workers Party is troubling, not least because that group prevented a police investigation into allegations of rape against its members, a claim that was denied, albeit not very convincingly.

However, if such unacceptable institutional behaviour does warrant an excommunication from public life, it surely falls on the Telegraph, ConservativeHome, the Sun and others to call for a General Election to bring down the Tories, whose officials covered-up a sexual assault and bullying scandal in a similar fashion last year. Remember that? A senior Tory activist was protected at the very highest levels of the Conservative Party, even though one of his victims committed suicide. No clamour for investigations into this, oh no, but organise an anti-war march, and suddenly sympathy for sexual abuse victims materialises and is hurled against you. Some people are very selective in their anger.

And who is the man at the House of Commons dispatch box calling for Stop the War to protest outside the Russian embassy? Was it, per chance, the same Boris Johnson who only in March wrote for the Telegraph,Bravo for Assad – he is a vile tyrant but he has saved Palmyra from Isil.” Or the same Johnson who in December wrote, “Let’s deal with the Devil: we should work with Vladimir Putin and Bashar Al-Assad in Syria.” If it’s OK for Boris Johnson to take such stances on the Middle East, why is it a problem for Stop the War?

Indeed, if the Telegraph is to give column inches to hit-pieces which accuse Stop the War of being “Russian sympathisers” or “traitors”, perhaps it should take a close look at its own financial arrangements with the Kremlin. A monthly supplement provided to all readers called “Russia Beyond the Headlines” isn’t an incisive investigative look at Putinist corruption, nor a crack team of undercover reporters exposing the Kremlin-funded far-right gangs who rally support for Putin on the streets. “Beyond the Headlines”, which pays for a good number of Telegraph salaries, is a publication owned by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a Russian state-owned newspaper which mimics the Kremlin line on every possible point. According to Private Eye, the Telegraph is thought to receive at least £40,000 per month for the arrangement between the two publications. Pots, kettles, black pots and more black kettles spring to mind.

The hypocrisy of Boris Johnson on this is particularly sickening, given his senior role in the British government and thus, potentially, in solving the Syrian conflict, but it is the broader problem of seeking to use the humanitarian crisis affecting Syria to play out vendettas, which are all the more galling. Just as Labour MPs suddenly developed an interest in anti-Semitism when it suited them — remember that in previous elections they had used anti-Semitic tropes in their campaigning materials — and victims of sexual assault were ignored by the pro-Tory press until it came to the Socialist Workers Party and Stop the War. We now have a situation where a foreign secretary is not rising above domestic politicking, as he should, but sliding into the gutter. Syria is a serious problem; don’t play political games with it Boris. To those particularly unquestioning journalists of the British right, I have but one thing to say: try thinking for yourself for a change; although it might not help your career, I assure you, it’s much more rewarding.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.