For the second time in 48 hours, Jeremy Corbyn stood at the despatch box and called for a “robust dialogue” with Russia.
The meaning of the phrase “robust dialogue” is not immediately clear, but that within seconds Tory Minister Claire Perry had shouted “You’re a disgrace to your party!” at him is as good a starting place as any.
Theresa May had just told the House that Russia’s 36 hour deadline to give a credible account of what happened in Salisbury had expired. And that they had treated the question with “sarcasm and disdain” and that action would be taken.
That action, naturally, will be the expulsion of 23 diplomats “identified as intelligence officers.” It marks the traditional first return of fire in a tit-for-tat war that has the potential for wild escalation.
To silence from his own benches and derision from the ones opposite, Jeremy Corbyn said it had not yet been ruled out that Sergei Skripal had been poisoned as a result of Russia losing control of its chemical weapons, rather than the attempted killing having been ordered directly from the Kremlin.
Directly after, and directly outside the House of Commons chamber, where Mr Corbyn’s media team take questions from journalists on such occasions, an already bizarre afternoon took a turn for the even more bizarre, but we’ll come on to that later.
What does Jeremy Corbyn think a “robust dialogue” with Russia is?
A British citizen and his daughter has been attacked in an unimaginably ghastly way, a policeman injured in the process and many innocent lives put at risk, and all the intelligence indicates it is highly likely it was carried out by agents of the Russian state.
A “robust dialogue”, in such circumstances, might be to give the Russian state a short timeframe to explain what has happened or face consequences. They have not done so, and action is being taken.
And yet the leader of the Labour Party was unable to commend or offer his support for the Prime Minister’s actions.
The “robust dialogue” continued afterwards, when Mr Corbyn’s official spokesperson told journalists that the government’s analysis could not be relied upon, because the history of information from UK intelligence agencies is “problematic” to say the least. The glib reference to the Iraq War has long been the go-to basement dwelling keyboard warrior’s response to any criticism of Jeremy Corbyn, and it should arguably come as no surprise that it is a voice that now resonates throughout the party leadership.
Labour backbencher after backbencher stood up to disown their leader, and offer their support for both the Prime Minister’s words and actions.
While they did so, Ken Livingstone propped up on RT to repeat the suggestion the poisoning may have occurred through Russia losing control of its chemical weapons. It is the same propaganda that has been consistently trotted out on Russian state TV by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and by all of Russia’s traditional propagandists.
The question therefore has to be asked: what does that make Ken Livingstone? And indeed, what does that make Jeremy Corbyn? At one point, Jeremy Corbyn asked why samples of the poison from Salisbury had not been sent to Russia so they could carry out their own analysis. This, again, is Mr Lavrov's line. How robust is a "robust dialogue" going to be, when all of your public comments are exactly the same as theirs? There is no strict definition to the term "robust dialogue", not least as it has been invented by Jeremy Corbyn, but it does intimate an aspect of disagreement.
It’s taken nine months, since Corbyn confounded his critics by losing a general election by a much narrower margin than had been expected, but we have returned to a familiar situation. Jeremy Corbyn disowned by his own MPs, widely considered a joke, but what happens next? Another leadership challenge? Another election for him to win by miles?
When he was elected leader of the Labour Party in September 2015 it was widely pointed out at the time that it would herald a return of ideology to British politics. Not anymore could voters claim “they’re all the same.” There was a clear choice. Left vs right. Private enterprise versus the state. Even capitalism versus socialism.
What was not made so clear however, is that it would also leave British voters with an altogether more different choice: between Britain and its enemies. It’s a hard sell, that.
