The year is 2020. Inside Number 10 Downing Street, the chief of the UK’s defence staff (Russell Brand) has arrived to give Jeremy Corbyn, the new Prime Minister, some really “heavy” news.
The Islamic State has acquired a nuclear weapon or three. There is confusion about potential delivery systems and how exactly the terrorist state procured the bomb. But they have it and have released a video online in which they welcome the imminent end of days. Israel is first on their target list but Britain, as a power with nuclear weapons, is high on the list too, as a means of menacing the Americans who have gone on to a war footing.
Even the newly appointed head of MI6 – Charlotte Church – thinks that the the time for talking with ISIS might be over. What does the new Prime Minister want to do? What course of action does he favour?
Jeremy Corbyn clears his throat and then speaks.
JC: “I want to begin by thanking Russell and Charlotte for their hard work on these important issues. Thank you. Thank you for all of the work that you do. I welcome this debate. It is a debate that we will have in full as a democratic party when conference meets.”
Charlotte Church: “But it’s June! Conference isn’t for three months. Brighton won’t exist by then. It will have been obliterated by ISIS.”
JC: “Thank you Charlotte. Thank you for all that you do. But I want to be quite clear that I will not press the nuclear button.”
Russell Brand: “Jezza, baby. Corbs. Corby. I like you. I like yer beard. I like the vibe. I like the whole Mr Bean outfit thing you got going on. But, Corbs, this is a heavy scene. They are going to blow us up. Come on, man.”
JC: “Thank you Russell. I welcome this debate. But I will never, ever press the nuclear button under any circumstances. Full stop.”
You don’t even need to try a thought experiment that outlandish to see the extent of the problem the new leader of Labour has just got himself and his party into. He has confirmed in interviews that he would never press the nuclear button, if he became Prime Minister. Any voter voting for him to become Prime Minister will know – by the time of the election – that the UK will effectively unilaterally disarm. This will be popular, although not very. And when I say popular, I mean popular with the Corbynite hard core and voters in Islington, so that’s not all that popular. Outside the hard left bubble, it is not a position that will do Labour any good. Even in Scotland, the polls suggest that the SNP’s anti-Trident policy does not command majority support.
This is not because people hunger for nuclear war. Of course they don’t. They fear war and want peace. Advocates of Mutually Assured Destruction (the MAD doctrine on which nuclear defence rests) also want fewer weapons, and some Cold War veterans have shifted their position to the extent that they want the weapons abolished by agreement and treaty.
But in a dangerous climate, with ISIS on the rampage and Putin playing games, you have to keep the option of firing such weapons open, otherwise the country’s potential enemies will draw the conclusion that you have disarmed.
Corbyn’s latest interviews leave him tied to the following position. If ISIS somehow found a way of detonating a first bomb in London, with the threat of more to come, Labour’s leader and a man who wants to be Prime Minister would not fight back. You could write the script of the Tory party political broadcast now. It wouldn’t be difficult.
It becomes more apparent by the hour that this man Corbyn is wholly unfit to be Prime Minister. Can’t someone sensible in Labour metaphorically nuke him, end his leadership or somehow get him to retire?
