# Corbyn is screwed **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 10, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197 "2015-10-10T21:05:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/21 "2015-10-11T02:05:17Z")
Everyone can it with the personal cracks. That’s not what you’re here for. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/22 "2015-10-11T05:31:08Z")
How relevant is PIRA in UK politics or society these days? Not much from what I saw in my time there, although UK dopers would know better. If Matin McGuinness could become b[est of buds with Ian Paisley](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/northernireland/11093656/Martin-McGuinness-fights-back-tears-during-Dr-Ian-Paisley-tribute.html), then I somehow doubt Corbyn would suffer too much. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/23 "2015-10-11T10:10:37Z")
Paywall, can’t read it, suffering too much austerity. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/24 "2015-10-11T10:16:40Z")
Quite happy about him snubbing the Queen though. We’ll maybe move out of the 18th century soon. How about a nice presidential system like those splendid Americans have ? I know, I know, that’s all rational and meritocratic and everything… ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/25 "2015-10-11T11:19:06Z")
I doubt if the Ulster situation has that much more traction now: I wholly opposed the nationalists, but I equally opposed the rest of the actors: they are all fucking republicans of one type or the other. This person’s chumming up with the IRA would have turned me off a decade or more back when they were a danger; now peace in Ulster is more important than clinging to the ancient hatreds. One can still hate privately, but emotion should never determine policy. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/26 "2015-10-11T11:28:14Z")
I haven’t read the piece and don’t particularly want to, I don’t understand the assumption other entities should inform or even define my moral compass, whether it’s a newspaper owner or a transient Gov of Trustafarian class waring ideologues (oops, a judgement). It’s a bit like feeling you have to stand up for a national anthem or for minutes’ silence - even if it’s for a mercenary contractor taking his chances in Iraq for a tax free fortune, and getting his head chopped off. Please report ‘news’ but editorialising, defining, judging … no thanks, I’m a grown up. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/27 "2015-10-11T11:35:55Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Looks like Jeremy Corbyn’s terrorist sympathies have been somewhat understated. > > The Telegraph [has a piece running tomorrow](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11924431/Revealed-Jeremy-Corbyn-and-John-McDonnells-close-IRA-links.html) that sheds some rather unwholesome light on exactly what his position on the IRA was (is?) > > It is the Telegraph of course and it has an agenda but the evidence appears to be a matter of record rather than heresay. > > I suspect they waited for the conferences to be over before publishing, give the story the space it deserves but, wow. Reading through it, if any small proportion of it turns out to be true then it is very difficult to think he can continue. He had the opportunity to clear this up before it all came to light and he failed to do so…bad move. > > I’d be interested to know what any Corbyn supporters think about this (if true of course) and whether it would have changed their voting had it come to light before the leadership election It was obvious from the early period of Corbyn’s leadership campaign that the “dirt” his political opponents and media used against him was only the tip of the iceberg. Most of Corbyn’s political career has been flown under the radar. The months and years ahead was when most of the dirt on him would be found out. I suspect an awful lot more is still to come out, much of it yet to be unearthed by journalists. Not only will it be unearthed by journalists but much will be leaked by the security and intelligence community. The people staffing these organizations will have had family and friends killed by the IRA. Whether we agree with it or not these people will see an opportunity for payback against Corbyn now. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/28 "2015-10-11T14:39:24Z")
Everyone spoke to the IRA, and all the way through that era - politicians, Whitehall, Gov, Intelligence. It’s a faux-shock nonsense to suggest otherwise. It’s so well documented now - esp with stuff coming out under the 30 year rule - you have to a fool to fall for the telegraph’s latest smear. For goodness sake, bogus public pandering aside, it’s incumbent on them to find solutions. One example: > **[BBC NEWS | UK | Adams and IRA's secret Whitehall talks](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2601875.stm)** > > Documents just released reveal for the first time how Gerry Adams and other IRA leaders met the government in 1972. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/29 "2015-10-11T15:50:51Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > Everyone spoke to the IRA, and all the way through that era - politicians, Whitehall, Gov, Intelligence. It’s a faux-shock nonsense to suggest otherwise. It’s so well documented now - esp with stuff coming out under the 30 year rule - you have to a fool to fall for the telegraph’s latest smear. > > For goodness sake, bogus public pandering aside, it’s incumbent on them to find solutions. One example: > > [BBC NEWS | UK | Adams and IRA's secret Whitehall talks](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2601875.stm) It’s not speaking _to_ the IRA that is the controversial issue here; it’s Corbyn’s speaking _for_ the IRA that is the controversial issue. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/30 "2015-10-11T16:13:47Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > It’s not speaking _to_ the IRA that is the controversial issue here; it’s Corbyn’s speaking _for_ the IRA that is the controversial issue. I think this is the key, it appears he was very much sympathetic and supportive of the IRA and their aims during a period when the were killing UK civilians. The claims that “everyone was talking to the IRA” are of course true. I don’t think any sensible person would believe otherwise. That is how progress is made but at least the leaders of the time had the good grace to hold their nose while they did it and had the justification of making a material difference to national security. Corby and McDonnell seemed to be far less concerned about their friends backgrounds. And this is someone that the Labour party wants to sell to the UK public as a potential leader. I just can’t see it. Ask the public if they’d rather have their leader skull-fuck a pig or climb happily into bed with the IRA and I suspect they’d choose the former. His general view on republicanism is of course his choice. Luckily for him it is a free country but unluckily for him that free country also has a free vote that puts some emphasis on perceptions of the leader, just ask Michael Foot, William Hague, Ian Duncan-Smith, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. It may well be true that the Labour party has attracted tens of thousands of vocal new members. That’s great, but it counts for little if, at the same time, you haemorrhage votes from the less ideologically dogmatic labour supporters and floating voters such as myself. Anecdotally, labour voters that I know are making very unhappy sounds about Corbyn and the shadow front bench in general. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/31 "2015-10-11T16:20:18Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > Everyone spoke to the IRA, and all the way through that era - politicians, Whitehall, Gov, Intelligence. It’s a faux-shock nonsense to suggest otherwise. It’s so well documented now - esp with stuff coming out under the 30 year rule - you have to a fool to fall for the telegraph’s latest smear. > [BBC NEWS | UK | Adams and IRA's secret Whitehall talks](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2601875.stm) Corbyn and McDonnell, from these records (which I’m assuming are not falsified) seemed to be genuinely supportive of the IRA. Do you not think that is substantially different from a government holding back-channel talks to broker peace? Or, think of it another way, what if David Cameron had an identical record of support and platform-sharing with the IRA or any of the paramilitary organisations. Do you not think that would be raised as a major issue as well? ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/32 "2015-10-11T17:34:29Z")
Wait, Cameron supports Saudi Arabia and all those Gulf states who are helping our deadly Islamist terrorist enemies right now. We don’t have to imagine terrorist links. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/khGa49rM6iM/maxresdefault.jpg "David Cameron on Ali Mohammed al-Nimr and Saudi Arabia") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khGa49rM6iM) ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/33 "2015-10-11T17:44:23Z")
.or even… Telegraph again… > **[Britain has sold its soul with the Qatari deal](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/qatar/11214888/Britain-has-sold-its-soul-with-the-Qatari-deal.html)** > > Our latest defence accord is with a country that plays host to terrorists at home and funds them abroad Maybe they have a nod and a wink deal to not bring the badness to UK soil. Maybe that’s not up to them ? ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/34 "2015-10-11T18:12:50Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > .or even… Telegraph again… > > [Britain has sold its soul with the Qatari deal](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/qatar/11214888/Britain-has-sold-its-soul-with-the-Qatari-deal.html) > > Maybe they have a nod and a wink deal to not bring the badness to UK soil. Maybe that’s not up to them ? As has every government since the beginning of oil…sorry, time. I don’t get the impression that Cameron or Blair or any of their predecessors are ideologically aligned with the gulf states. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/35 "2015-10-11T19:31:47Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > As has every government since the beginning of oil…sorry, time. > > I don’t get the impression that Cameron or Blair or any of their predecessors are ideologically aligned with the gulf states. I’ll have to wait and see what this Telegraph scoop says I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/36 "2015-10-11T19:44:24Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > As has every government since the beginning of oil…sorry, time. > > I don’t get the impression that Cameron or Blair or any of their predecessors are ideologically aligned with the gulf states. Nor would Cameron mock the murder (and permanent injury) of Labour MP’s quite the same way Corbyn allowed mocking the murder of 4 senior Conservatives in a Corbyn edited publication. As you stated previously, no-one is calling for Corbyn to be placed against a firing squad here. Corbyn is allowed to align himself with whoever he wishes and in whatever way he wishes. However, he has to expect the consequences of his choices. The consequence in my view is the further disillusionment of the semi skilled English working class with Labour. Just about every English constituency will contain a victim of the IRA. Expect almost every local paper to carry a sympathetic story from victim’s families in the run up to the next GE. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/37 "2015-10-12T03:42:43Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > Nor would Cameron mock the murder (and permanent injury) of Labour MP’s quite the same way Corbyn allowed mocking the murder of 4 senior Conservatives in a Corbyn edited publication. As you stated previously, no-one is calling for Corbyn to be placed against a firing squad here. Corbyn is allowed to align himself with whoever he wishes and in whatever way he wishes. However, he has to expect the consequences of his choices. The consequence in my view is the further disillusionment of the semi skilled English working class with Labour. Just about every English constituency will contain a victim of the IRA. Expect almost every local paper to carry a sympathetic story from victim’s families in the run up to the next GE. I don’t see it. Semi skilled workers don’t read the Telegraph much for one. For another, there are millions of people now in the workforce who’s only experience of the IRA is as foreign news. UKIP will hate him for it, and the other people UKIP hate will be more concerned with wages and rent. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/38 "2015-10-12T03:48:07Z")
Eh, just read the piece - sharp intake of breath. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_of\_Words](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f6c823/32.png) [@Jack\_of\_Words](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_of_Words)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/39 "2015-10-12T07:33:48Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > I do think that a potential national leader of a country with a nuclear deterrent publicly announcing that he would never authorise its use marks a combination of naivity and foolishness that is difficult to credit. Even if you wouldn’t ‘press the button’ _(I wouldn’t unless under certain unlikely circumstances)_ you _don’t tell potential enemies that_. Corbyn is on record as a committed opponent of nuclear weapons - so he can stick to his guns (teehee) or be labelled a hypocrite. Either way, he’ll get it in the neck, but at least this way he demonstrates integrity. Of course, plenty of national leaders ‘tell’ potential enemies they won’t annihilate with nuclear weapons…because they don’t have any. Would you use them yourself? If so, would you use them as a first strike, making you a callous monster, or only in retaliation…in which case they clearly weren’t a deterrent…? Some people feel that the country must be run by a callous monster (or at least someone prepared to enact posthumous revenge we’ll be blissfully unaware of). I expect some proportion of those people would advocate a military coup in the event that a democratic system ‘failed’ to bring the result they wanted. As for these IRA links, in which the actions of some politicians put them in close proximity to ‘a readers letter’ from an unpleasant reader, and in which some politicians are seen in photographs shaking hands with the wrong sort of people (like Jack Straw and Mugabe, for instance), perhaps it is best for world leaders to entirely disassociate themselves with any public figure who served prison time for their refusal to abandon an armed struggle against an oppressive regime. But they all went to Mandela’s funeral, anyway (Cameron and Obama at least had the decency to puncture the solemnity of the occasion by posing for a selfie). ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197/40 "2015-10-12T08:45:25Z")
Mud sticks, guaranteed come election time people will be hammered with a simple message. \* ‘IRA supporter’ ‘Economic threat’ ‘Threat to national security’\* Repeated ad infinitum, and he will subsequently lose the General election. This kind of attack worked last time on Ed Miliband by associating him with the SNP. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corbyn-is-screwed/734197.md?page=3)