Jeremy Corbyn Is Unfit To Be Prime Minister

[Applause] thank you hannah and thank you very much everybody for coming tonight it is going to be a really important event because the possibility probability perhaps that jeremy corbyn will become the 55th prime minister of this country the prime minister who'll be in power on the 300th anniversary of that first prime minister robert walpole this is a very serious and real possibility and that's what we're debating tonight it is the motion is about that he's unfit to be prime minister it's not about is he a good or a bad leader it is specifically can you see him walking into number 10 and does he have the qualities that prime ministers require although frankly looking at the qualities of some of the 54 who have pretty predeced would have pred means predecessors you worry whether they had many of the qualities themselves so we are going to be debating this jeremy corbyn is unfit to be prime minister and the first speaker for this motion is on my immediate right ha jacobson novelist journalist best known perhaps perhaps for the finkler question which won him the 2010 man booker prize a prominent critic of jeremy corbyn and in particular his handling of anti-semitism in the labour party howard would you like to be walking up uh as we go every speaker has a maximum of 10 minutes howard that is now 9 59. mr chairman ladies and gentlemen something tells me you're expecting to hear me call jeremy corbyn and anti-semite there's been a bit about this in the press and i well you know but i'm not going to call him anything he says he isn't an anti-semite hamas says he isn't an anti-semite the white supremacist david duke says he isn't an anti-semite and that's good enough for me [Applause] you might think i'm being ironical ladies and gentlemen i am incapable of irony we all know what an anti-semite looks like he wears jack boots a swastika armband and he shouts juden rouse jeremy corbyn wears a british home store's vest under his shirt and is softly spoken anti-semites accuse jews of killing jesus corbyn is an atheist and seems not to mind whether we did or we didn't whether that's because jesus was jewish and killing him meant one less jew in the world is not for me to say and and he doesn't deny the holocaust mind you he knows a man who does in fact he knows a surprising number of men who do [Applause] that he denies ever having been in their company until photographs turn up of him rubbing noses with them at the grave sides of mass murderers offering to show them his belief systems if they'll show him theirs gosh they're almost the same size should come as no surprise you can't spend your whole life in the company of blood libelers and holocaust deniers and expect to remember them all by name if i may quote from oscar wilde's missing play the self-importance of being jeremy to associate with one anti-semite you don't know to be anti-semitic mr corbyn may be regarded as a misfortune to associate with anti-semites on a regular basis looks like a predilection but look when i think of the scoundrels i've hung around with i know how easy it is to get people wrong even when they turn up to meet you wearing hoods and holding burning crosses and jeremy is it okay if i call him jeremy has never actually been what you could call observant take that mural he championed showing bankers playing monopoly on the naked backs of the world's oppressed you and i ladies and gentlemen would look at those greedy grasping hooked nose syphilitic zionistic financiers and recognize them at once as straight out of the julius striker i spy book of jews but so innocent of anti-semitic character is caricature sorry but so innocent of anti-semitic caricature is jeremy that he didn't see anything remotely offensive i didn't look closely he explained later how many times does he have to say that for god's sake i might have been there but i don't think i was involved i don't remember i didn't look closely if this reminds you of those who live downwind of the chimneys of bergen-belsen claiming never to have smelt anything out of the ordinary i say you have suspicious natures corbyn is a busy man busy men must take emotional shortcuts there's an image of a blood-sucking jew it's identical to the image of the blood-sucking jew i already carry in my head snap could there i wonder be such a thing as an in advertent anti-semite jeremy claims to be a piece a peacemaker a peacemaker brings warring parties together why then do we only ever see him taking palestinians to tea could it be that he just can't remember to ask the israelis bugger i've forgotten to invite the jews again unless perish the thought it isn't peace he wants after all but the destruction but the triumph of those he calls comrades and the destruction of those he doesn't according to his supporters jeremy corbyn doesn't have a racist bone in his body just a question but what is a racist bone and how do you know whether another person has one there are 64 bones in the human arm alone can one be absolutely certain that jeremy doesn't feel even the tiniest twinge of bone ache somewhere between the scapular and the humerus when he sees an alien figure such as i coming towards him on islington green carrying the collected speeches of benjamin disraeli and humming mahidisha mama and what are we to make speaking of corbyn's unconscious of his inability ever to disavow anti-semitism without reminding us of his lifelong opposition to all forms of racism which is like answering the question are you a wife beater with the assurance that you always buy the big issue because an anti because anti-semitism ladies and gentlemen isn't quite a racism it's closer to a superstition embedded in theology shrouded in medieval irrationality updated to suit leftist economics and exhumed whenever a single explanation for all the evils of the world is sought to talk of anti-semitism as a racism is a contradiction in terms for jeremy corbyn since in his eyes jews are neither downtrodden nor exploited but are as usual colonialists and conspirators the very source and fount of racism themselves once whole jews to be racist and zionism a racist endeavor then no anti-semite can ever be a racist himself and any definition that says otherwise must be amended that's the psychology now the science corbyn's political life has been determined by newton's first law of inertia which states that an object will stay at rest forever as long as nothing pushes or pulls on it in physics that something that might push or pull it is another object in motion in socialist politics it is a view contradictory to your own corbyn averts his face whenever he hears the word jew and rolls his eyes whenever he is asked a question because he fears the chaos otherwise known as a change of mind that maintains you from accepting there's another way of looking at the world i will spend my remaining seconds i don't mean in life i mean of this speech telling you why it matters to everyone not just jews that a man so spiteful sanctimonious and obdurate should never be allowed to do to the country what he's doing to the party those who revere corbyn see it as a virtue that he has never changed his views mr chairman it is only a virtue to be faithful to one's views if those views are worth staying faithful to to persist in a small erroneousness is the mark of a fool to persist in a great erroneousness is the mark of a dangerous fool the ideology in which corbyn has been pickled for half a century without worn before it even reached him it oversaw the death of millions that the ideologies he opposes have scarcely done any better is not an argument for his you don't have to love the west to refuse the embraces of those whose sole ambition is to blow the west apart especially if you wish to call yourself a pacifist this should have been a golden summer for labour the nightmare that is brexit the hell that is jacob rees-mogg the out-of-season pantomime that is boris johnson from all these labor ought to have delivered us but corbyn did as much as anyone to make brexit happen with his feeble non-support for remaining do you remember that question how much do you favor staying uh seven seven and a half seven that was one to get us to the barricades was it not ladies and gentlemen the wrong man ladies and gentlemen the wrong man in the wrong time espousing the wrong causes i am nothing if not fair people who are limited in everything but the pleasure they take in themselves are ten a penny in all political parties they haunt the peripheries like ghosts of the christmases they don't believe in past backing losing causes throwing tea parties for murderers and looking saintly mr corbin's misfortune was to be lifted from those peripheries and dumped haplessly in the center ladies and gentlemen not just for our sake but for his for theirs will someone please have pity and dump him back thanks thank you uh howard for that uh measured and calm introductory speech our first speaker against the motion is chris williamson labor mp for derby north a key ally of jeremy corbyn on the back benches described by the new statesman no less during the 2017 general election as the most pro jeremy corbyn candidate in england's most marginal constituency this is chris williamson thank you very much indeed chair and um i uh unlike the previous speaker i'm going to try and stick to the motion and i aim to demonstrate that jeremy corbyn is indeed fit to be prime minister but let me start by thanking intelligence squared for arranging this event and i must say that when i joined the labour party as a 19 year old apprentice bricklayer back in 1976 i never imagined speaking at such a high brow event anyway i'm sorry to say that i think howard's indulging in a complete mischaracterization of jeremy in my opinion jeremy corbyn will prove to be the best prime minister this country has ever had just look what he's achieved just look what he's achieved already the labour party's membership has more than tripled since he was elected leader in fact labour's membership's considerably higher than every other political party put together but it's not just labour soaring membership that's impressive he's restored hope to millions of people who'd given up on politics and he's inspired young people in a way that we've never seen before so what's his secret well the truth is it's pretty straightforward labor is now offering a real choice free market economics has failed millions of british people and working-class communities have been hardest hit thatcher's promise of a shareholding property owning democracy was a fantasy but the confidence trick worked and delivered substantial electoral success in fact thatcherism was so successful that he gave birth to tony blair and new labor margaret thatcher even said that tony blair and new labor were her greatest achievements because she said we forced our opponents to change their minds but that left millions of britons politically homeless turnout at elections fell while public cynicism about politics grew despite the financial crash ten years ago much of the political class and the mainstream media are still enthralled to neoliberalism neither are speaking to the needs of the country for the last four decades we've seen rising inequality but the preceding 34 years when inequality narrowed to such an extent that as a 19 year old apprentice bricklayer in 1976 i was able to buy my own house it was a brand new three-bedroom semi-detached house backing onto a nice waterfront in a desirable village eight miles south of derby and it was only three times my annual wage so another world is possible but it requires political will that's why corbyn's message that he'll make a future labor government work for the many not the few is resonating just look at the polls there's never been an easier time to campaign for the labour party most people support the individual policies that jeremy's promoting and by way of evidence charles brandreth went to guilford the capital of the home counties looking for secret socialists and he found plenty he stopped people on the street and asked them if they supported things like higher taxes for peeping people earning over 150 000 pounds oh yes yes yes yes i support that regulating the private rented sector yes that's a very good idea oh i turn this ball out ending privatization in the national health service well i'm totally with you on that they said scrapping tuition fees absolutely about time and clamping down on tax avoidance yes we must definitely do that there was almost universal support for those policies and then charles brandreth turned his clipboard around and said these are the policies of jeremy corbyn there is mainstream popular support therefore for jeremy's policy the truth is that deregulation privatization and the commodification of public services was disastrous the one-dimensional obsession with financial services was wrong-headed too and the absence of an industrial strategy has driven millions into low-paid precarious employment working-class kids can't hope to replicate what i did as a 19-year-old apprentice our industrial heartlands have been abandoned and people are searching for answers the post-crash response has been hopeless and dangerous qe for example actually exacerbated inequality even the right-wing spectator magazine described it as the biggest transfer of wealth to the rich of any government policy in recent documented history but the last eight years of austerity has generated real resentment far-right populism is on the rise fueled by poverty and insecurity meanwhile the mainstream media perpetuate the politics of fear by scapegoating migrants and that's then used to whip up racism political centrism offers nothing in these circumstances it's just another name the free market status quo and that ship has sailed just look at italy greece and even france where macron's poll ratings have plummeted and this is a guy who models himself on tony blair so there's no political salvation in that direction but corbyn's program for common sense socialism offers a populist antidote to the politics of fear in fact jeremy corbyn's labour party is the only traditional leftist center party in europe that's prevented the drift of its core vote thanks to jeremy corbyn labour's answer the demands of those left behind voters not by scapegoating migrants not by whipping up racism and not by moral panics over crime or foreign enemies corbyn's labor office something better class politics is back on the agenda but let there be no doubt who we're talking about when we say for the many not the few because that may be where some of howard's anxieties lie labour's taking aim at an elite defined by their class perspective and nothing else those who speculate on our economy who avoid paying tax who profit from privatized utilities like gas water electricity and the trains and as for the debate about the ihra examples of anti-semitism let me be clear one of the reasons this has been a sticking point for labour is because we genuinely care about the politics of anti-racism and jeremy corbyn yes has been fighting racism all his life the debate in labor has been exclusively about preserving the right to speak up for palestinians and to legitimately criticize the israeli government i want to say this there are three voices in this debate but we rarely hear from all three first there are the diverse voices in the jewish community many of whom have a strong and very understandable deep connection to israel second there's the labour party which must write policy in the interests of the nation and according to the party's values and third there are the palestinian people who let's be clear were violently displaced when israel was established we cannot and we must not try to hide this fact just because we find it distasteful or uncomfortable but labour's policy towards israel palestine conflict is for a two-state solution it's not an attempt to reverse history just like peace in northern ireland in fact peace where in whatever form can only be achieved by dialogue so let me return to the motion at hand it might seem odd but the 68 year old jeremy corbyn has modernized labor making it fit to overcome the challenges facing the country our manifesto last year saw labor's biggest increase in vote share since 1945. over 80 percent of the british public support regulation of tax avoiding digital digital text giants like amazon google and facebook 80 of the british public support raising the minimum wage establishing a publicly owned national investment bank and borrowing to invest polls over 55 these policies represent the new center ground of british politics they represent a direction that no other labour leader was prepared to go before corbyn never mind another political party we live in a country where the wealthiest 10 percent home 900 times more than the poorest 10 percent and yet we're the sixth richest country on the planet how can we let this go on but let's talk about the man himself there's so much said about him it's hard to keep up apparently he's a terrorist sympathizer but he's also a pacifist he's a weak leader but he's also overbearing he's the leader of a cult but he's not charismatic what i see in jeremy every time he stands at that dispatch box even under the glare from both sides of the chamber is a man with a strength of moral convictions and yet these convictions are far from dogmatic the special thing about jeremy is that he's a politician that listens everywhere you go with him is a complete nightmare he speaks to everyone and i mean he really speaks and he really listens is that not the character of a man who's fit to government fit to govern because what do we mean by governing john mcdonnell's fond of saying when labor goes into government we all go into government and jeremy is above all a democrat he wants ordinary people to have a say in how their world is shaped isn't that refreshing is this not the attitude we need to heal a nation divided by four decades of neoliberalism are made worse by a government that's inflicted eight years of counterproductive austerity people on the left often say that at times of crisis we must choose socialism or barbarism well today we have a similar choice investment or austerity dialogue or conflict democracy or dogma the choice today is between corbyn's labor or a tory twilight zone powerful and passionate from chris and brilliantly on time you came in just as that clock said uh 10 minutes precisely uh anna subray is going to speak next for the motion coming up now to the podium conservative mp for brockstowe in nottinghamshire and former business minister until 2016 a prominent critic of jeremy corbyn anna thinks that jeremy is a hard left marxist she's a key member of the people's vote campaign for a referendum on the brexit deal anna you have your 10 minutes beginning now well thank you very much and thank you everybody for coming along what i'd like you first of all to do is to remember when you were back at school uh whichever school you may have gone to there's i think it's almost impossible to imagine that you didn't have a head teacher and throughout your life you will have had in your experiences times when you will have encountered or it may have been you yourself who has been a leader so we have all had experiences of what we would expect to see in a leader a good leader or a bad leader or perhaps not so great leader so what are the qualities that make a great leader because of course you need to have those qualities to be the most important important leader in our country which is to be our prime minister i suggest as you consider that some of the following qualities integrity competence an ability to inspire a dis an ability to be able to take decisions and ability to have accountability in your leadership to have courage and most of all perhaps in the political field as a prime minister to be successful i listened with care to chris's speech when he spoke in such glowing terms about jeremy corbyn spectacularly forgetting of course that last june we had a general election and whilst it's right that he won a few more seats he spectacularly failed because he lost as leader of the labour party at a time when arguably it would have been the most easiest win of any general election because of the profound failings of my party when it went into that campaign which as you might imagine i don't intend to dwell upon but and i really wish you hadn't applauded now if you haven't been convinced by the magnificent speech of howard over there may i give you some other suggestions and ideas as to why jeremy corbyn is profoundly unfit to not only be our prime minister but to be the leader of one of the most important political parties in the world even though it's a party i've obviously never been a member of i don't subscribe to and seek to fight i never left recognize what an important political party it is and i know what it has meant for so many people in our history and in our country one of the most peculiarly awful moments in the time that i've been in parliament i was elected in 2010 i'm an old criminal barrister and i came into politics or returned quite later on in my life we're standing in parliament square just down the road there surrounded by members of the jewish community who were staging a protest against anti-semitism in their own party the labour party and i sat in parliament listening to speeches from members of parliament who were jewish who talked about anti-semitism in their lives on a scale that they had never experienced before but the most remarkable and most disturbing and distressing speeches were those from labour jewish mps who talked about this rise in anti-semitism from within their own party and that is a party that jeremy corbyn has now led for what is it almost three it is three years almost he should be ashamed of what state he has taken that great political party into and it's it's not just the jewish mps in the labour party who make complaint it's the women too speak to women labor mps about the abuse that they have received during his tenure by members of their party and in particular the abuse they have suffered by supporters and from supporters of jeremy corbyn and howard rightly mentioned brexit i don't think chris mentioned it at all astonishing isn't it the most important matter issue decision that our country has taken since the second world war and as howard rightly identified again corbyn spectacularly failed to lead his party his people his voters into making the right decision for our country by his not just his lackluster performance but that by that 7.5 that he gave and of course he said that because he doesn't believe that we should have stayed and should remain within the european union we've heard from chris about the return of the class struggle he is the perfect embodiment of what has happened to the labor party the return of the old hard left it's nothing new i remember it from my days as a student these are the people who are now back in charge these are the people who are running the labour party and on brexit this issue that dominates our politics what do we see from the labour party where is the leadership where is the policies none of these things exist dragging and screaming they were to accept a customs union they still haven't embraced the merits of the single market because perversely and bizarrely from this great party or this great leader that chris eulogizes who apparently believes in immigration they still won't come out and make the positive case for immigration that must and should be made i say to their eternal shame they have shown no leadership and what does that mean what has that resulted in this is how i see it well you could say the official opposition is a bunch of tory back benchers like me and some very brave moderates on the labour party side as well who do our best to put some sanity and reason into this terrible crisis that our country will face if we don't get a good deal or even better if we were to remain within the european union but god help us if we have that hard brexit what it means in my opinion is there are millions and millions of people in our country who believe that nobody speaks for them they are good sensible moderate tolerant people who have long occupied the center ground of british political life they have seen the labour party been taken over by the marxists the trotskyists the rabble that have existed on the extremes of politics for a long time and chris says these are the people these hundreds of thousands that apparently jeremy has brought back to the labor party what i think ed miliband would say it was his three pound membership that had a bit to do with it that's what jeremy did he took advantage of that now i would agree only in this way i think that corbyn has inspired a section of our young people who understandably in my view were disenchanted who are ideologic idealistic who wanted to hear stuff perhaps they hadn't heard from maine political classes for far too long and i i think he caught that mood i think he wrote that wave and he did it very well but of course as they now see what it really means corbin corbyn's politics as they now see and understand the anti-semitism that has always run through the extreme left i believe they are quite rightly turning away so he's apparently got even more members into the labour party this is his it seems only victory and success of course chris forgets and doesn't tell you about the 103 resignations from the labour front bench during jeremy corbyn's tenure and you know that within the labour party as it exists in parliament he has very little support amongst members of his own party who sit in parliament and i would uh i would argue that speaks volumes because i don't want to play the man i do want to talk about his policies but i think the clock's against me but what i would say is this on all the big occasions like yesterday when the prime minister stood up and talked about what had happened in salisbury on all the great occasions corbin just can't do it he just hasn't got the ability to say the sort of thing that you would expect from a credible leader of a major political party especially the leader of the opposition ian blackford vince cable spoke better than he did yesterday and even when he has a superb open goal and some would say that my prime minister often stands in parliament in front of that very wide open goal spectacularly on every occasion he misses it and why is that because he is somebody who has always been on the absolute fringes carping from the sidelines somebody who probably the biggest decision of his life was what was going to be the vegetarian option at the palestinian solidarity meeting i make i make light of it but ladies and gentlemen in my respectful submissions to you there really is no debate whichever way you cut it this man is not fit to be our prime minister never mind the leader of the labour party so uh thank you very much indeed uh anna for uh that i think we we got uh the general drift there of what you thought about jeremy corbyn which after all is the point of the debate now we're going to have against the motion and for jeremy corbyn uh ash sarkar ash is senior editor at navarro media which as i'm sure you know is a left-leaning online news outlet where her work focuses on race gender class and power ash as you will shortly discover is a prominent supporter of jeremy corbyn ash i'll keep it brief what the are we all doing here i don't mean this in any philosophical sense real talk what the hell are we all doing here love island has finished but that's still no excuse really to spend your evening in this way i mean it's my job to chat crap for a living but if i'm being honest with you i really hate these things a slot up on the stage come here we prowl around for our allotted 10 minutes given it the full gordon brown if we are able telling you that jeremy corbyn is either the cause of or the solution to all your life's problems and we gnaw over the greatest hits brexit populism foreign policy anti-semitism civility and then we put it in your hands the audience the demos who paid between 15 and 30 quid for the privilege of voting and we practice our faces for losing gracefully we hope that we would be magnanimous in the event of victory and then every single person in this room every one of us goes home with a comforting hum of self-satisfaction for what we have done in this room is none other than the lofty business of politics itself which is utter fraff right all we're doing in here or even just around the corner in the palace of westminster your place of work mate or in broadcasting house is trying to keep alive a collective delusion that politics resides in these approximations of the oxford union debating society and that's why jeremy corbyn scares the bejesus out of so many people not because he is a czech spy who moonlights as a member of hezbollah all while working undercover for the provisional ira of course while at the same time simultaneously trying to do a hard brexit and subvert the referendum outcome it's because corbyn as leader of the labour party is an expression of the social forces poised to change britain on a scale which it hasn't seen since 1945 because at its heart the project of corbinism is the building of power outside the hallowed halls of westminster it's about power in our neighborhoods in our unions and our workplaces our schools and our community centers our social networks both on and offline i want to speak in this register the register of movements i want to speak in my beven's words the language of priorities so hands up full disclosure i am not a labour party member like you know what's that saying about not wanting to be a member of any club that would have you in it i go with that my heart is with movement politics they always have been it's been that way in my family for generations so my grandmother came here at the age of 17. she was greeted by teddy boyz spitting bile at her my mother similarly would often put her own five foot one body in between london's black and brown youth and the racist police officers and or national front members sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between them and neither of them had very much positive to say about the labour party and this was in the age of what anna calls the old left back in the 70s which apparently is the same one that we've got now they weren't any big fan of this old left many of the unions were hostile to black and asians participating in organizing with them often the same labour councillors who are trying to organize events against the nf would be letting out their council properties for the nfts at the same time a gross act of hypocrisy in my mum and my grandmother's eyes so they committed themselves wholesale to movement politics outside of the labour party though funnily enough both my mom and my grandmother have fond memories of a certain scruffy haringey councillor later mp for islington north joining them on the anti-apartheid picket line and in my mom's case supporting her campaign for specialist domestic violence services for women of color and it is in their tradition the tradition of my mom and my grandma that i am first and foremost an anti-racist activist and it is for this reason that i say unequivocally that we must fight anti-semitism islamophobia anti-black racism xenophobia in the labour party and the left at large tooth and nail and we cannot in any way deny the fact that these issues exist on the left and they exist on the left because the left exists in society takes some specific forms on the left but it's essentially the same things that we see elsewhere and any call by loyalist who's telling you that we don't have to do race do anti-racism and the labour party is missing the whole point of corbyn's politics in their entirety he has always been a dedicated anti-racist activist and the women of my family knew something and i think corbyn in his days as an activist knew something too that electoral politics alone cannot deliver substantial social change like that anti-racist change which is so needed in our society indeed as the slogan goes there is no justice there is just us skipping forward a few decades we knew this in 2010 i was a student activist who along with thousands of others up and down the country responded to the betrayal of the liberal democrats and even woke tories like anna suberey who trebled the tuition fees by uh occupying our universities just down the road on westminster bridge we were kettled we were charged out with horses in the freezing cold and there were only two mps who came to see us during this time when we were sleeping on a cold university floor because the university administration had cut off the heating eating cold hermes which is quite crap jeremy corbyn and john mcdonnell and they've never forgotten the debt that they owe to these social movements they know that when they enter number 10 they're not going to be all that interested in parliamentary horse trading meeting up with their opposite numbers maybe trying to engineer some kind of parliamentary split to i don't know scrap over six percent of the votes like many centrist mps instead they will be meeting with people like disabled people against the cuts they will be meeting with the families of people who've lost loved ones to police violence they will be meeting with people directly affected by austerity and using their voices to guide the direction of policy in this country that's social movement politics the funny thing about both uh howard and anna's speeches is that they acknowledged that the summer should have really been an open goal for labor polls haven't shifted very much the awful depressing thing about this anti-semitism crisis is that there's not much cut through to the rest of the british public everyone is deeply alienated and turned off from seeing the serious business of racism reduced to a cheap opportunity for political point scoring i'm deeply depressed by it i'm deeply depressed that for your powerful words against anti-semitism they were powerful anna that you've had nothing to say about the crisis of islamophobia within your own party from figures such as baroness varsity who has called for an inquiry and has been stonewalled at every turn i also don't remember a great deal of criticism of your colleagues like michael fabricant sharing islamophobic memes and these memes are very similar to the form in which anti-semitism takes i don't agree with howard that anti-semitism is divorced from all other kinds of racism i agree with edward syed who says that anti-semitism and islamophobia are both nourished at the same source nurtured by the same stream i as a muslim cannot be safe while my jewish brothers and sisters are unsafe and vice versa so i've got about a minute left i'll probably end a bit sooner than that because uh i think the natives are getting a bit restless i don't actually care about jeremy corbyn's personality i mean i think he's a nice enough guy it reminds me of the werther's original granddad i care about us i care about if we are ready for government because the tories they'd rather talk about personality than policy because that's the terrain in which they lose and it's up to us to keep the conversation on the issues that really affect us every day it's not a question of whether we trust jeremy corbyn to be a fit prime minister when he walks into number 10. it's about whether we trust ourselves to walk in behind him so to paraphrase someone whose name i've forgotten after tonight catch up on the programs that you missed and then go back into your neighborhoods and prepare for government [Applause] so uh uh ash passionate also unconventional uh quiet i thought uh understated uh beginning um i mean why the are we here after all um uh great let's uh begin with just getting some movement amongst the panel but before then i do have the results very hot off the press from uh people's democracy and it is on the motion is in fact in truth jeremy corbyn unfit to be prime minister well apparently 66 percent of you think he is unfit 13 i think he's just fine and 21 of you undecided so we're going to take that vote again i didn't go through the long rigmarole of reminding you the procedure because most of you have been here before but we're going to have another vote and i'm going to read out that to see how people have shifted 21 i'm going to say we're going to be australian here and say that you can't be undecided you simply have to have a view i mean come on why have you come out here if you can't pick up my mind whether he's fit or unfit what are you doing here why didn't you watch uh what watch love island because it's not on but you could see it on on iplayer or something so you have to vote and i'm going to want to see real movement there and okay so let's just get howard um i got the point howard uh that you think jeremy is a bit of an anti-semite but why does that make him unfit to be prime minister given that most uh of the 54. absolutely most of the previous prime ministers many many previous prime ministers have been racist well i'll tell you something between ourselves since no one is listening i don't care that much either i don't care that much what i care is the lies that he spins to protect his anti-semitism what i what i cannot bear is this is a man pickled in sanctimony pickled by his supporters in even further sentiment with this account of i've fought racism all my life what is that worth if the first time he's brought to brought to a test here is a problem of racism how does he cope he bottles it he looks the other way the whole description that we've had of corbyn tonight is a bit of a person we've never seen yesterday upon the stair i met a man who wasn't there he's a man who isn't there is he there um astrid um uh is he there and is he a liar is jeremy corbyn a liar see that the thing is when you say is he there it's like you're asking me is he there as some kind of proto-father figure i mean i think that this idea of jeremy corbyn as a totem onto which you project all your hopes or indeed all your fears or your anxieties or your kind of bogeymen is ridiculous is he there as a principled anti-racist who has voted in favor of anti-racist policy when people on this panel have not who've stood by migrants who've stood by people who've been victims of police violence he's done all those things that is a matter of fact and record do i think the labour party's been quick enough to respond to the anti-semitism crisis i think there's been a great deal of bureaucratic inertia but i don't think that any other parties have done much better when tackling the worst problems in their own circles okay uh chris is he a liar because i would note uh the not telling lies is an absolutely necessary requirement for not being prime minister well jeremy well look jeremy is absolutely straight as a die and uh you know the the the notion of uh straight talking honest politics which was the strap line in his leadership campaign goes to the very heart of jeremy corbyn absolutely and indeed you know he is an anti-racist he has stood up to all forms of racism including anti-semitism and what i get pretty annoyed about is how people conflate appalling anti-semitic abuse online with labour party members and somehow hold jeremy corbyn responsible the truth is the labour party has done more than any political party to address anti-semitism far more than the conservative policy and the conservative party is riddled with racism and where is anna as ash was pointing out where is anna in actually standing up to that i'm afraid she's absent without leave so there's a couple of points to be taken up there first of all as a long i was in the anti-nazi league before ash was even born so i've been fighting racism all my life secondly sec hang on i didn't interrupt you secondly i don't disagree the there are bound to be racists in the conservative party but we're talking about the labour party where there has been a rise in anti-semitism under germany and you say no that's true and you say rubbish and i didn't interrupt you either mr williamson okay and we're not just gonna talk jewish mps who suffer anti-semitism from labor party members okay chris well there's been research on this and enough and it's demonstrated that anti-semitism in the labor movement is actually lower than the country at large and furthermore anti-semitism within the labour movement and labor supporters has actually reduced since jeremy corbyn became the leader so for anna to for anna well i'm sorry well look at the research look at the research don't be blinkered okay um okay now uh clearly our critter the audience uh clearly the audience is strongly agreeing with that anna uh moving on from that one is your party anti-islamic certainly not uh are there no anti-islamic people in the party i'm sure there are as there are in all parties because parties reflect unfortunately our society look i'm the co-chair of the appg on for muslims british muslims one of the things that we are looking at is the definition of islamophobia so that we now move to putting that into law so islamophobia of course is a problem in our society and frankly i think it's grown since we've had the referendum i think intolerance and racism actually has grown unfortunately in our country this is the referee that's why we all need to come together and fight it together i'm going to ask you a question now about europe you have a choice i'm going to give you a choice of two visions you can either have britain still in europe and there's a second referendum and we vote to remain in or going with that is jeremy corbyn at number 10. would you sooner be in europe still with jeremy corbyn which would you sooner i've actually thought about this okay good while you're carrying on thinking about it no i've got an answer the thing is i don't want us to leave the european union but if we leave the european union at least we can go back we won't go back on such good terms but we can go back might take my daughter's generation to do it but we can go back if you get jeremy corbyn into number 10 god help our country and you won't be able to get rid of him for five years and the damage he will do will be even greater well uh let's take that very point because chris you mentioned yourself that he's 68 in fact he's 69 that means he might not be 73 until he goes in and uh that means he might not be 78 who comes out 83 after another term i mean even gladstone is only 82 in churchill 80. i mean that's getting on a bit isn't it we're talking about fitness uh here uh is he gonna be fit i mean some people would say he's very fit now but would he still be fit in office at that age of course you will and let's remember the 60 is the new 30 for a start and jeremy corbyn is also bordering on a vegan and the vegans are going to inherit the earth so he's incredibly healthy i don't think he drinks very much and he is driven to actually create a better country absolutely so yes of course he'll be fit enough and he's got the energy indeed angela eagle said i don't know how he does it during the referendum campaign he has the energy of a 25 year old jeremy corbyn did more than any leader of any political party to secure a remain vote and he was absolutely right he was absolutely right when he said when he gave the european union seven out of ten because i tell you what the reason why the british people voted against the european union voted to come out was because of the policies of the people like anna subrie because she's had abundant whole swathes of our industrial heartland into an abandoned working-class communities and they were sick to the back teeth of it and they wanted something different now i think they were misplaced their view but that was the problem it was absolutely not down to jeremy corbyn and as i say straight talking on his politics jeremy tells it how he sees it and he felt seven out of ten was the appropriate score to give your opinion so he gave an honest answer and he's been pilloried for telling the truth yeah thank you very much indeed we're just coming on to questions now so let's have the lights up and we're going to just see uh there i wanted to get a moment of quiet consensus between uh both sides before we went in till we achieved that uh here um and we're going to have the first question there is a lady uh in the front row i want to see a second question i want to go over on this side at the back yes somebody over there is going to take the second question please right this debate was about whether jeremy corbyn is fit or unfit to be prime minister it has revolved an awful lot around anti-semitism two things why is my synagogue in the center of london jewish new year having to put up the sort of entrances that normally we see in airports we've never had that before and the increase in attacks on jewish people has risen with jeremy corbyn and if jeremy corbyn is so wonderful why are you not streaks ahead in the point and why when he adopts the official definition of ant of anti-semitism does he have to put a caveat on it okay so there's uh you've spoken too much panel about anti-semitism but there blow me down to a question on anti-semitism question number two over there please stand by question number three yes come in too uh chris you said that jeremy is a very good listener but does he hear anything because i would love to see what evidence you can give of him changing his mind can you list the issues where he's changed his mind be it venezuela or whatever okay thank you and question number three over there can he uh listen yup i i just want to say that i've been watching jeremy corbyn for many years i've been to many of his meetings for 10 years we've recorded him and we know that he's an anti-semite we've heard him we know that he supports hezbollah we know that he supports the ira and my question is do the people of this country really want a prime minister who has that background and who lies about it as howard jacobson said he has told lie after lie after lie his beloved are not not his friends he says this man tells porkies and he wants to run our country he wants to run it as a marxist country is that what we need okay so so thank you very much and i'm going to ask you that lady there what is that lady asked about what is the worst single saying that you've heard him say come here the question microphone back please mike back to that lady though i want you to know very quickly the worst thing in 10 years that you've heard him say jeremy corbyn refers to israel as a racist entity that to me is the worst thing that because what he's talking about he's not talking about israel he's actually talking about jews israel is a synonymous people thank you thank you very much okay uh right um howard do you want me to say the worst thing i've ever heard him say yeah you haven't got the time to hear the worst things he's ever said but i thought when he said that zionists have got that's to say jews jews zionists they change around as it suits them have got no sense of irony um and don't study history tell that to simon sharma and when he said that his actual words were having lived in this country for a very long time probably all their lives they don't under having lived in this country for a very long how to make a section of this country feel like aliens is he the clothness of that ear that he does not hear you that you can say to people who have lived in this country for generations oh you've lived here but you haven't got the part of it i have never felt and all the jews i know all said well that really is the end of it whatever doubts we had before that's the end of it if we can talk about jews like that then there's no hope for him and as for this but i could also add the speech he gave on on iranian tv because this is a man who made many appearances on iranian tv and russian tv there's a role for god the speech he made on iranian tv to the iranians who swear the destruction of israel he said i think the bbc is a bit biased because they seem to think there is an argument to be made for for the survival of israel through his the ma the bbc is biased because he thinks there is a an argument to be made for the survival of israel meaning i don't think there's an argument to be made for the survival of israel that's where he stands on israel okay and got that thank you very much i'm going to want to identify the people for the next batch and bring in ash for the responses to that does he listen uh is he in fact an anti-semat again i think we've answered that but does it matter would he be capable in downing street of ruling in the interests of jewish people or would he discriminate against them i mean i'd like to try and take some of these questions in one big bunch because i think the one which went unremarked on was um by the lady with the fabulous earrings about this rise and an semitism and attacks on synagogues um but just quickly in terms of howard's um talking about this joke is that i think it was a clunky joke it was a joke which was playing on more british than the british but i find it funny that you found that indefensible whereas you defended the healing power of bernard manning you're on record saying this you were you know part of a documentary in which you're in the front row laughing along bernard manning that's what i did i didn't defend him at all you didn't watch carefully the telegraph the same piece in the telegraph um said that in this channel four documentary which is in 1997 so i don't watch it uh i was five and it was really in sesame street around that time um was that you're in the front row laughing along while he made awful jokes about irish people jewish people and also used their n-word so this seems like a striking bit of hypocrisy but one of the things i would like to say so i want to come back to your point about this escalation and anti-semitism because i think that this is something which we lose when we zero in on the labor party's internal processes is that anti-semitism particularly attacks on those who are seen as being culturally distinctive in some way whether that's institutions or individuals has gone hand in hand with islamophobia and at the same time you've had an amplification of anti-semitic harassment and hate online i think that this needs to be dealt with by looking at how our culture reproduces hatred of those who are deemed to be other who are deemed to be deviant who are deemed to not belong here the problem is the problem with isolating wait give me give me a chance to respond okay right because i did listen to you i'm going to say thank you very much can you please be quiet so that everyone else can get on with the debate thank you ash your response i'm going to take three more questions and i would really like not to have questions on anti-semitism because this is a bigger debate tonight than just ambition i'm saying very important but there are question number one go question number one thank you um entertaining as it's been can we maybe talk more in detail about the economic policies that jeremy corbyn uh so uh is he fit economically to run the country uh secondly uh here corbin's mantra for the many not the few is more suitable to a country like south africa in this country the many are the middle class the few or the downtrodden so the question he's the right politician but in the wrong country all right okay uh thank you very much indeed i'm going to ask chris to come in first on that and question number three well as a partially jewish person i am absolutely appalled that this meeting tonight has been hijacked by the debate about anti-semitism i mean frankly we face as has been said this incredibly serious question about whether we leave europe or not it seems to me that has to be the main burden of what we should be talking about and which party let alone whether jeremy corbyn is fit and the fact is we are being so let down and why is it in fact we know that the 48 52 result was absolutely outrageous for us to be taken forward on the basis of something called democracy in something so important so why is this not being discussed in relation to who should lead the labor department and to be fair to anna she said it was the most important uh topic uh in the whole of national politics at the moment chris told me that his section on europe he didn't have time to come on take europe take the economy is jeremy corbyn fit to become prime minister later this year or anytime in the next three or four years well obviously i believe he is clearly and in terms of economic policies look we've had four decades of neoliberalism it's been a total failure it's completely failed whole swathes of our country we've seen manufacturing jobs offshore to low-wage economies we see people millions of people in precarious employment we see our public services being hived off to the private sector we see our utilities going the same way they're used as a cash cow and we see industrial scale tax evasion and avoidance and we absolutely have to clamp down on that and we are saying that we'll be an end to neo-liberalism we will have an economy that does indeed work for the many not the few we will make sure that the tax evaders pay their way that the faceless corporations actually pay their way and contribute to the public services and the education and infrastructure that they rely upon so yes we are a party for the many not the few and as for only oh sorry i was going to say europe just just anywhere on europe okay well europe listen on europe i campaigned night and day i was up in the early hours of the morning on the two days prior to the vote to leaflet commuters so i played my part and i spoke at numerous public meetings we lost the vote we cannot go back and have another vote and i tell you what if we were to go back and i think it's incredibly irresponsible of anybody from anna to chukaramuna to constantly be calling into question the decision that was taken by the british people as flawed as it might have been because a decision has now been taken whether it be 52-48 that's how democracy works and if we continue down this track and if they were to be successful in getting another referendum i fear we would lose it but worse it would i think precipitate an even worse postmodern 1930s crisis arise in the far right we're seeing the influence of the far right and the conservative party already and we would be precipitating a nightmare scenario we need a people's brexit let's focus on that and stop this piffle about calling for a people's vote in the second referendum nonsense so no pitfall no pitfall no nonsense if jeremy corbyn had come out really strongly given how effective he is we've been hearing as a campaigner if he'd come out really strongly for remain would the vote have been different jeremy came out strongly for remain [Applause] let me tell you isn't it odd how nicola sturgeon is hailed as a great conquering heroine who secured exactly the same percentage of s p voters voting for remain as jeremy corbyn did it's absurd it's another proxy war by the people who are obsessed with prison which has failed millions of british yeah you were given seven and or if i said to you if you said would you mark my speech tonight and i went hmm seven i'd be quiet if you gave me seven you wouldn't you would you'd want ten uh well i would but i'll be happy if you get it if you gave me seven hundred between ourselves i think i think you deserved ten thank you for someone to have so few arguments and to be delivered them with such passion i think it's fantastic so what is labour's policy what's chris's policy on brexit that's the most the woman is right that is the most important question because it reflects on corbyn's leadership remember corbyn said we should trigger article 50 the day after the eu referendum do you think that's a responsible leader to trigger article 50 the day after the eu referendum they have had no policy until they've been dragged screaming and kicking to a customs union and the irony of it is is chris williamson talks about the manufacturing sector unless we have that frictionless trade in the single market you will see hundreds of thousands of jobs will go in the manufacturing sector so why isn't labor standing up as now increasingly trade unions are doing calling for customs union calling for the single market calling for an economic outcome and finally on the people's vote that is about the deal and i think the people of this country do have a right now we know more about what leave actually means they do have a right to a say and a vote on a deal and interestingly the gmb came out in agreement with that yet another trade union who labor's meant to be wedded to seeing why it's so important that the deal goes back to the people so they decide not 650 mps okay just out of out of interest hands up those people who would like a second referendum people's vote and hands down hands up who still is in favor of remain okay uh good so this is a very brexit audience we're gonna take three more questions now the questioners have to ask questions in no more than a sentence of 40 words now i'm going to cut you off then and we're not going to have we're going to pick those points up can the panel please note what they're saying uh when they're asking and at this very moment here there's final voting on the motion jeremy corbyn is unfit to be prime minister let's take these three brilliant questions because there are about 40 or 50 questions these are brilliant questions question number one let's go number one in you come all right this is for chris williamson um about five or six times sorry i'll stand up yeah you use the phrase neoliberalism yeah i want to know exactly what you mean when you say that got that good excellent uh number two where is uh number two uh we're gonna go straight through number three over there i don't need to be lectured by chris williamson about anti-semitism but my question is what government in any country over the last 50 years would you expect jeremy corbyn to most emulate any country the last 50 years thank you very much uh marvelous and this is the best question of all uh coming in here from can we talk can we have a question on the economy it's for everybody and particularly chris command economies have failed in russia and china what you're proposing is to take central back command and control of our economy and that has led to the utter disaster so could you comment really chris you're much loved tonight everyone is um wanting to spend chris chris is here are able to sign autographs um ash and picking up in the any points um it sounds strange after this evening i'm probably filled with more political optimism than i have in a very that i have been in a really long time i think that whether you like him or not hated or never ignored jeremy corbyn has been part of energizing political discussion in this country which we haven't seen for decades as to what country he will probably emulate while in government i think there are strong cases to look at scandinavian social democracies but ultimately ultimately the changes that he wants to bring to the economy are ones that we haven't seen before because we are facing economic crises that we haven't seen before and the responses to those will have to be radical and they will have to be creative we'll have to look at how we distribute the abundance generated by the automation of labor we'll have to look at how you can have a social housing program which doesn't look like the big bureaucratic fair moss of the 60s and the 70s how do you have housing cops on a mass scale these are the kinds of questions that jeremy corbyn's labour party is dedicated to addressing and alongside that progressive economic platform you will have a renewed political culture of anti-racism you cannot have anti-racism without that progressive economic platform you cannot have a progressive economic platform without anti-racism i'm really filled with a sense of hope as a young person who's locked out of the economy is locked out of the housing market that jeremy corbyn and his team will be able to produce some concrete answers and solutions to the problems that otherwise i've got i think are going to result in a nosedive and standards of living for the decades to come we're already looking at stagnant and falling wages you can look at corbyn the personality as much as you want but take a closer look at the policies and i think let's have another discussion in a few weeks time thank you ash very much indeed for that anna i'm old enough to remember when this country was described as the sick man of europe we then joined the european union we saw then our country become one of the most successful fastest growing economies in the g7 that's why we have the jobs the prosperity record levels of employment now i don't say that we don't face huge challenges we know that it's not just about brexit we've got to get it right when it comes to public expenditures so that we will make sure that we deliver the great services we need we've got to make sure we have the aspiration amongst our young people and the opportunities they all deserve these are huge challenges that our country faces and what we get on offer from jeremy corbyn are the failed policies there's nothing new about his economic policies in particular and a number of you have already identified where in the world do you see any of those policies being put in today into operation and the answer is venezuela that's about as near as it gets these are bankrupt policies they were bankrupt back in the 70s and it's true today and my final thing i will remind you i asked you to look at the tests of any great leader integrity competence the ability to inspire decision-making accountability courage and success and i would argue even if you don't buy the argument on anti-semitism look at all the other things that make up the man of jeremy corbyn apply them to those tests and i would argue he fails on every single one he must be one of the most unfit people to be our prime minister that we've encountered in british politics and he's certainly not leading the labour party and i return to that message millions of decent moderate tolerant people in our country are unrepresented and it's a scandal and it must change and he must go as part of that okay um i don't know if you've been to venezuela but from now on you're both going to be saying what country he most uh would represent um if he became leader and you have to have gone to that country so chris you're to well well let me try and deal with some of the uh the the the questions that were raised and i was asked about my definition of neoliberalism basically it's a deregulated market capitalism with a small state which clearly hasn't worked as for which countries we would kind of be similar to i think kind of take your pick across western europe really in terms of the way in which they've conducted their economic affairs and the point that was made about a command economy what we're talking about is democratizing our economy giving people a stake in our economy making the economy work for ordinary people giving young people a stake giving young people hope giving young people a career plan making sure we can care for our elderly and disabled people and rather than seeing them as some sort of burden or a way in which we could make money through the privatized social care system and as for anna's point about britain being the sick man of europe in the 1970s yes the 1970s definitely had its problems but economic growth never ever bettered anything that was achieved during that period and furthermore every single year from 1945 through to the introduction of neoliberalism saw a bigger and bigger proportion of the national income going to workers in their wage packets so if we could replicate that once again we could get back to the point where young apprentice bricklayers like i was in 1979 could aspire to buy their own home again ash touched upon the challenge of automation we're embarking upon the fourth industrial revolution are we seriously going to sit back and leave it to the neo liberals or are we going to make sure that we use the benefits that will flow from the fourth industrial revolution i remember being told to get ready for the leisure generation in the 1960s and 70s because automation was supposed to be mean that would only work 10 or 15 hours a week that is now a genuine real possibility but we need a corbin-led labour government to make it happen [Applause] for a moment i thought derek hadn't had come back uh for a moment we had direct to explain who derek hatton is i i'm a young person i wasn't around in the 70s myself the wonderful thing about hearing chris williamson is i now understand what happened did you know he runs a road show he goes up and down the country doing this road show where you deselect people i thought road shows were places where you chose a record on the beach but apparently not you go on to the beach you choose somebody you'd like to select and chris williams says okay i'll deselect them for you on the grounds that deselection is such an important part of the labour party at the moment and i think the place jeremy should go to to learn a lesson is israel and he should talk to some israelis and maybe if they're if the country is as apartheid as he's successfully apart of as he says it is which is total bladder because it's not true in the slightest bit in the slightest bit true but since he thinks it is maybe he can learn a few lessons then because apartheid is what you're practicing in your country in your party you don't want any other voices anybody who speaks other than you you deselect you call that a labour party when you think of the great tradition of the labour party the wonderful radical moralistic christian political socialistic tradition from which the labour party has grown those wonderful men of the 18th and 19th century and it's come to this you don't agree with us you deselect it you should be ashamed of what you've done to your own one straight party how had you still got another 10 seconds can you do that gesture again because you should be ashamed of what you've done for your one straight part i've got 14 seconds you well i give those to chris chris well listen our party is growing exponentially and i'm absolutely proud of my party proud of jeremy corbyn and we're going to transform this country i'm sorry everyone it has been such um uh such a dull uh quiet debate uh here i've got now ringing in both my ears severe tinnitus uh from uh these people and being kicked under uh the uh table two and uh but i do have the result for you um and the result i think shows that we know why the f we are here tonight um the uh for uh the motion that who these people think that he's unfit and there are some uh 800 people here tonight it was 66 and it has gone down that's a false fact uh it's gone down to 85 percent uh 85 um and against has also gone up uh up uh from a 13 to 14 therefore we can say that everyone's a winner no we can't uh we can sorry everyone's a winner uh but uh howard uh what really i think is shameful is that there was apparently one person here tonight on the data i've got who didn't know uh but i've also been told here they thought they'd come to a wrong debate they thought they'd come to a vegetarian society meeting tonight so uh if you want to identify yourself hannah kay here is in the front row and we'll refund your money so that you might come back again thank you for being a great audience thank you being a spectacular [Applause] panel you

Channel: Intelligence Squared

Views: 37,601

Keywords: howard jacobson, ash sarkar, anna soubry, chris williamson, anthony seldon, corbyn, jeremy corbyn, labour, labour party, conservatives, tories, theresa may, putin, socialism, corbynism, antisemitism

Id: vuOJ884yyOE

Length: 82min 42sec (4962 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 09 2019