Political positions of Jeremy Corbyn
[4] Writer Ronan Bennett, who formerly worked as a research assistant to Corbyn, has described him as "a kind of vegan, pacifist idealist, one with a clear understanding of politics and history, and a commitment to the underdog".
[12] Corbyn has campaigned against private finance initiative schemes,[13] supported a higher rate of income tax for the wealthiest in society,[14] and his shadow chancellor proposed the introduction of a £10 per hour living wage.
[20] A number of economists, including Steve Keen, said that Corbyn's candidature for leadership of the Labour party "recognis[ed] the inspiring possibilities for a fairer and more equal society offered by an information economy in an interdependent world".
[40][41][42] The letter called for buffer zones to be established around clinics, arguing women "face daily abuse when undergoing terminations", with protesters instead given space in town centres or Speakers' corner.
The cost of the policy was estimated at £10 billion which would be funded by "a 7% rise in national insurance for those earning over £50,000 a year and a 2.5% higher corporation tax, or by slowing the pace at which the deficit is reduced".
[44] During the 2017 election, Corbyn had a policy of scrapping university tuition fees from 2018 restoring the maintenance grants abolished by the Conservatives in 2016 and funding a free national education service.
[53] He also believed that Britain should play a crucial role in Europe by making demands about working arrangements across the continent, the levels of corporation taxation and in forming an agreement on environmental regulation.
In a speech in London, Corbyn said: "We, the Labour Party, are overwhelmingly for staying in, because we believe the European Union has brought investment, jobs and protection for workers, consumers and the environment."
He said the UK government should not be "held back, inside or outside the EU, from taking the steps we need to support cutting edge industries and local business".
If a Corbyn government implements his declared policies the level playing field mechanism will lead to increased costs for Britain to access the single market because of distortions caused by state aid.
[72][73] Corbyn does not consider himself an absolute pacifist and in 2015 named the Spanish Civil War, the British naval blockade to stop the slave trade in the nineteenth century and the role of UN peacekeepers in the 1999 crisis in East Timor as justified conflicts.
[89] During the 2017 election, when questioned about Corbyn's anti-NATO statements, Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said, "Jeremy has been on a journey, to coin a phrase.
[97] Corbyn also called for a proposed Trump state visit to the UK to be cancelled following his executive order banning visitors from certain majority-Muslim countries from entering the US.
He described the actions of the Israeli official, Shai Masot, as "improper interference in this country's democratic process" and was concerned on national security grounds that Boris Johnson had said the matter was closed.
[106] In his keynote speech at the 2018 annual Labour Party conference, Corbyn said that, if elected, his government would immediately recognise the Palestinian State as a way of supporting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He declared that the Labour Party condemned the "shooting of hundreds of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza by Israeli forces and the passing of Israel's discriminatory nation-state law".
[111] In October 2014, Corbyn visited Tunisia to attend the "International Conference on Monitoring the Palestinian Political and Legal Situation in the Light of Israeli Aggression", organised by the Centre for Strategic Studies for North Africa.
[114][115] In August 2018, the Daily Mail reported, with pictorial evidence, that during the event, Corbyn had also been present at a wreath-laying at the graves of Salah Khalaf and Atef Bseiso,[113] both of whom are thought to have been key members of the Black September Organization, which was behind the 1972 Munich massacre.
[116] The Jerusalem Post commented: "In another photo, Corbyn is seen close to the grave of terrorist Atef Bseiso, intelligence chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
[125] Balkan Insight wrote that, during the 2015 campaign for the Labour leadership, Corbyn was criticised by bloggers and journalists for "having once apparently dismissed Serbian war crimes in Kosovo as a fabrication".
In January 2016, after a United Nations panel ruled Saudi-led bombing campaign of Yemen contravened international humanitarian law, Corbyn called for an independent inquiry into the UK's arms exports policy to Saudi Arabia.
Corbyn and Hilary Benn wrote to David Cameron asking him to "set out the exact nature of the involvement of UK personnel working with the Saudi military".
"[154] At Chatham House in 2017 he was asked if he would "condemn the genocide which is going on against the Kurds in Syria and in Turkey," Corbyn responded with "I would be very strong with the Turkish government on its treatment of Kurdish people and minorities and the way in which it's denied them their decency and human rights."
Corbyn said that Salah was "a voice of the Palestinian people that needs to be heard" and accused then-Home Secretary Theresa May of giving "an executive detention order against him".
"[174] In 2012, the artist Mear One publicised on social media that his mural Freedom for Humanity, about exploitative bankers and industrialists, was being censored; Corbyn responded at the time by questioning the removal of the artwork, and then in 2018 was criticised by Jewish leaders for not recognising an antisemitic canard.
[178] Jonathan Sacks, a former Chief Rabbi, described the remark as "the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell's 1968 'rivers of blood' speech.
[185] In July 2018, Labour, with Corbyn's support, agreed a code of conduct which excluded or amended some of the examples from the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism relating to criticism of Israel.
He was asked by the society's President, Joel Rosen, what he had done to stop Luciana Berger, a Jewish MP for Liverpool Wavertree, from being "hounded out" of the Labour party.
[198] In November 2019, a number of British public figures urged voters in a letter published in The Guardian to reject Corbyn in the impending general election, alleging an "association with antisemitism".
[199] The Labour Party responded by noting their robust actions in dealing with it and that several of the signatories had themselves been accused of antisemitism, Islamophobia and misogyny and/or were Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
