Jeremy Corbyn has said a Labour government would pursue a “triple commitment” to defence, development and diplomacy, and seek to resolve potential conflicts through political action rather than relying on military force.

The Labour leader delivered a speech to the Chatham House thinktank that was designed to hit back at those who describe him as weak on national security by insisting he is “not a pacifist”.

Making clear that he considered any military action to be an absolute last resort, he urged Britain to “walk the hard yards to a better way to live together on this planet”.



Asked whether there were any past armed conflicts he believed had been justified, Corbyn said few people would argue against the second world war, mentioned the East Timor conflict and spoke of military personnel helping refugees.

He also referred to President Dwight Eisenhower’s final television address in 1961, which warned of the “unwarranted influence … by the military-industrial complex”. He added that the world was now a more dangerous place than at the height of the cold war.

Speaking later on Channel 4 News, Corbyn refused to commit to sending British troops to defend a Nato ally under attack from a country such as Russia. Corbyn said that article 5 of the Nato treaty outlined a duty to support another nation under threat but added: “That doesn’t necessarily mean sending troops. It means diplomatic, it means economic, it means sanctions, it means a whole range of things.”

Pressed twice more on the issue, the Labour leader pointed to poor relations between Turkey, a Nato member, and its neighbouring states, asking: “Would we automatically want to get involved in a war that had been provoked by some of these actions?” He said the UK should think of how to avoid conflict. “Don’t let’s think all the time about how to go to war.”



At Friday’s speech, the Labour leader and longtime peace campaigner described how his personal views on armed conflict had been fuelled by hearing from his parents about the horrors of the second world war, and seeing graphic images of the Vietnam war.

“My generation grew up under the shadow of the cold war. On television, through the 1960s and into the 70s, the news was dominated by Vietnam. I was haunted by images of civilians fleeing chemical weapons used by the United States.

“I didn’t imagine then that nearly 50 years later we would see chemical weapons still being used against innocent civilians. What an abject failure. How is it that history keeps repeating itself?”

With Theresa May’s Conservatives painting Labour as soft on defence, party strategists are keen to avoid the perception that Corbyn would refuse to use armed force in any circumstances. But they believe his record of opposing ill-fated military interventions, including in Iraq, will play well with many voters. He criticised what he called “regime-change wars”, many of which he said had not worked.

Corbyn reconfirmed Labour’s commitment to renewing the Trident nuclear weapon system – which was agreed by the party’s conference last September – but underlined his own personal concerns about their use.

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“I am often asked if as prime minister I would order the use of nuclear weapons. It’s an extraordinary question when you think about it: would you order the indiscriminate killing of millions of people? Would you risk such extensive contamination of the planet that no life could exist across large parts of the world? It would mean world leaders had already triggered a spiral of catastrophe for humankind,” he said.

Asked to confirm whether that would mean like-for-like replacement of the four nuclear-armed submarines required to maintain a continuous at-sea deterrent, he said: “That is the decision we will inherit as a Labour government and that is what the position is.”

But he said Labour would hold a defence review, which he did not want to pre-empt. “We cannot, obviously, decide what a review would decide or it wouldn’t be a review.”

Corbyn also pledged that a Labour government would immediately review the presence of troops in Estonia, as well as the UK’s role in the conflict in Syria.

The Labour leader accused the US president, Donald Trump, of escalating geopolitical tensions, including with North Korea, and criticised May for forming what he called a “coalition of risk and insecurity with Donald Trump”.

“The new US president seems determined to add to the dangers by recklessly escalating the confrontation with North Korea, unilaterally launching missile strikes on Syria, opposing President Obama’s nuclear arms deal with Iran, and backing a new nuclear arms race,” he said, suggesting that a Labour government would have a more cautious relationship with the Trump White House.

The event was an effort to get Labour’s general election campaign back on track after a chaotic two days in which a draft of the party’s manifesto was leaked wholesale to newspapers.

Corbyn was accompanied at Chatham House by key frontbenchers including the shadow attorney general, Shami Chakrabarti, and the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry. However, the shadow defence secretary, Nia Griffith, was not present – she had earlier clashed with the Labour leadership over the drafting of the party’s manifesto.