Smith’s comment that ‘all actors’ need to join talks on Middle East conflicts is criticised by Corbyn camp as hasty and ill-considered

Owen Smith, the Labour leadership challenger, sparked controversy on Wednesday by suggesting a British government would have to negotiate with Isis to end the conflict in the Middle East.

Asked in a televised debate whether the terrorist group, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria and has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in the west, should be allowed to join talks about resolving the conflicts in the Middle East, Smith said “all actors” should be involved.

Owen Smith suggests Islamic State needs to 'get round the table' – live Read more

By contrast, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has sometimes been accused of being too willing to associate himself with extremist groups, said Isis should not be allowed to take part in talks. “No, they are not going to be round the table, no.” Later a spokesman for Corbyn criticised Smith’s remarks as “hasty and ill-considered”.



Smith, who was a special adviser to Paul Murphy, Northern Ireland secretary in Tony Blair’s government, said: “I worked on the Northern Ireland peace process for three years; I was part of the UK’s negotiating team that helped bring together the loyalist paramilitaries.

“My view is that, ultimately, all solutions to these international crises do come about through dialogue, so eventually if we are to try to solve this all of the actors do need to be involved. But at the moment Isil [Isis] are clearly not interested in negotiating. At some point for us to resolve this, we will need to get people round the table.”

He later clarified the remarks in a Facebook Q&A, saying Isis would have to “renounce violence, cease all acts of terror and commit themselves to a peaceful settlement”, before any talks could take place.

But his comments were seized on by the Conservatives, with Johnny Mercer, the MP and member of the defence select committee, saying: “His desperate attempts to out-Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn have led him to the view that barbaric murderers who behead journalists and lynch homosexuals are now the sort of people that we should negotiate with.

“It shows that whoever wins this increasingly bizarre leadership election, I’m afraid Labour just cannot be trusted with keeping us safe.”

Corbyn has previously suggested a back-channel to Isis should be maintained as part of efforts to resolve the Syria crisis.

“The British government maintained a channel to the IRA all through the Troubles,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show in January. “I don’t condemn them for that. I don’t condemn them for keeping a back-channel to the Taliban.

But a spokesman for Corbyn’s campaign said : “Jeremy has always argued that there must be a negotiated political solution to the war in Syria and the wider Middle East, and that maintaining lines of communication during conflicts is essential. But Isis cannot be part of those negotiations. Instead, its sources of funding and supplies must be cut off.”

Smith, the MP for Pontypridd and former shadow work and pensions secretary, announced that he would challenge Corbyn after the Labour leader was hit by a series of resignations from his shadow cabinet, and lost the confidence of 172 of his MPs.

The battle for the future of Labour has become increasingly ill-tempered, with the deputy leader, Tom Watson, claiming last week that Corbyn’s leadership has encouraged hard left “Trotsky entryists” to seek to infiltrate the party.

Smith and Corbyn locked horns repeatedly in Wednesday’s two-hour-long debate, clashing over Smith’s claims that the Labour leader has failed to do enough to crack down on bullying and antisemitism.

One young party member in the audience, Francesca, said she had witnessed intimidating behaviour at a recent Labour youth meeting, and suggested she would feel safer as a Labour supporter at a Tory conference than a non-Corbyn supporter at a Labour conference.

Victoria Derbyshire, who hosted the debate on the BBC News channel, suggested the atmosphere in the Labour party had become “toxic”; but Corbyn shot back: “Well how do you know?”

He added: “I attend large amounts of events all over the country where there are people of all shades of opinion having a respectful and intelligent debate; that’s how we should do things at all time.”

Europe marked another dividing line, with Smith repeating his promise to offer the electorate a choice about whether to accept whatever Brexit deal Britain managed to negotiate, with a second referendum or a general election. He described the decision to leave the EU as “a desperate mistake for our country”.

Student fees were another area of contention, with Corbyn saying he would scrap them, while Smith would fund university education through a graduate tax.

Britain’s nuclear deterrent was another issue over which the pair set out differing positions, with Corbyn saying he would arm the Trident submarines with conventional weapons instead of nuclear warheads, while Smith said he believed in multilateral disarmament.

Smith said he had been a unilateralist in the past, saying: “I used to hold that view, I don’t any longer. I think we should negotiate our way to get rid of nuclear weapons. The country wants the Labour party to be serious about the security of our country.”

Corbyn, by contrast, described nuclear weapons as, “unconscionable”.