17:21

Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition Labour leader in the UK, has already given at least two interviews about the Paris attacks (see 10.36am and 2.56pm) but the most revealing is easily this new one, by the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg. Corbyn, a relatively obscure leftwing backbencher until his surprise victory in the leadership election in September, is probably the most pacifist figure to lead a major UK political party since the 1930s and this interview revealed how different his views are from David Cameron’s - or from Ed Miliband’s, his predecessor as Labour leader.

Here are the main points.



Corbyn refused to say whether he would ever support military action against Islamist extremists. He was asked about this three times. In his first reply he said:

I think I would support security measures, policing measures, to deal with these issues, but I think we have to be careful if we act illegally or irrationally; we stand by the rule of international law, we stand by the charter of the United Nations, we stand by our own law. If we start doing random acts without legal backing for them, then we don’t strengthen our position in the world. So I think the answer to your question is that we have to abide by the law.

When it was put to him that in some circumstances military action against Islamist extremists would be legal, he said whether or not he would approve was a hypothetical question. Bombing Syria was not the right way forward, and he would not support it at this stage, he said. When Kuenssberg pressed him for a third time he replied:

I’m not saying I would or I wouldn’t. I’m saying its a hypothetical question at this stage. My view is we have to review our foreign policy, review the situation that’s going on in the region and listen to words put forward by Barack Obama on behalf of the United States and Ban Ki-moon on behalf of the United Nations. They made some very wise comments over the weekend. There has to at the end be a political solution to it.

Corbyn said that he would not be happy to order the police or troops to operate a “shoot to kill” policy in relation to terrorists on British streets. Asked about this, he replied:

I’m not happy with a shoot-to-kill policy in general. I think that is quite dangerous and I think that can often by counter-productive. I think you have to have security that prevents people firing off weapons where they can ... The idea that you end up with a war on the streets is not a good thing. Surely you have to work to try and prevent these things happening. That has got to be the priority.

This story was prompted by a front page Times story on Monday (paywall) saying special forces have been ordered to intervene and shoot to kill if jihadis stage a Paris-style attack in a British city.

He said he thought Western intervention in the Middle East was partly to blame for the Paris attack. Asked if he agreed with a post from Stop the War on Twitter (subsequently deleted) saying Paris was “reaping [the] whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in Middle East”, Corbyn replied:

I would not use that language. I would use the language that has been put forward by the thoughtful words of President Obama saying we had to reckon with what happened there.

But he said he did think Western policy was a factor in explaining the attacks.

We have created a situation where some of these forces have grown. Obviously, [I] absolutely blame those that did it. Absolutely, obviously, Isil are totally wrong. Obviously they are some kind of nihilistic movement that are a threat to everybody. Is the way of dealing with them bombing which will include civilian casualties? Bombing does. Or is the way to obviously make the necessary security protective measures in each country, but also to try and get a solution in Syria? We can’t go on with more and more people leaving Syria who are refugees from all wars ... We’ve got a record, all the Western countries, of interventions, all across the whole piste, and has peace got better as a result of it? Well, I think you know the answer as well as I do to that.

He said the government should abandon its planned police cuts to enhance security in this country. The government should also recognise the role community policing can play in building up good community relations, he said.



He said he received a security briefing from the government on Saturday about the Paris attacks.