Young Labour vote for UK to leave NATO to oppose Donald Trump and US imperialism
JEREMY Corbyn is facing fresh embarrassment after his party’s youth wing voted for the UK to leave NATO.
Young Labour demanded the UK ditch the military alliance after voting to support a motion called “support Corbyn and internationalism, oppose Trump and NATO”.
The motion said: “From Guyana to Vietnam to Iraq, the Labour Party all too often been complicit in American overseas aggression. NATO has been the lynchpin and institutional expression of American imperialism.”
Labour’s youth section called for an end to the UK’s membership to the alliance claiming NATO’s “continual aggression” made us less safe.
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The successful motion read: “Labour should commit to withdrawal from NATO on the basis that it no longer meets our collective security needs”.
A spokesman for the Labour leader said: “Jeremy and Labour are committed to NATO, as laid out in our manifesto.”
However Mr Corbyn has previosuly drawn criticism for a lukewarm approach to NATO after failing to directly commit to upholding Article 5.
US military equipment arrives in Poland for NATO exercise
Labour should commit to withdrawal from NATO
Article 5 sees Nato members committing to the principle of collective defence with an attack against one member seen as an attack against all members.
During the 2016 Labour leadership hustings when asked what his response would be to Russia invading a NATO member Mr Corbyn said: ”I would want to avoid us getting involved militarily by building up the diplomatic relationships and also trying to not isolate any country in Europe, to bring them up."
When pressed the Labour leader said: "I don’t wish to go to war. What I want to do is achieve a world where we don’t need to go to war, where there is no need for it. That can be done."
Mr Corbyn also once branded the alliance a “Cold War organisation” and claimed it should have been “wound up” before later retracting this.
The Young Labour motion claims NATO pursued wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq to “regain and ideological justification”.
The statement goes on to claim that support for these war led to voters turning away from the party and losing faith in parliamentary democracy.
The motion summarises: “Labour should commit to withdrawal from NATO on the basis that it no longer meets our collective security needs, is headed by a man variously viewed as an authoritarian and a fascist, and that its continual aggression makes people in the UK less safe than they otherwise would.”
