Lead Letters: Corbyn/Syria

1.

Some would say that a country governed by a subset of professional career politicians representing a political party that gained just over one third of the total of potential votes in a general election is scarcely a shining example of democracy in action ("Calls grow for Labour leader to allow free Syria vote", The Herald, November 30).

The same observation can be made of an opposition party led by a man who has the overwhelming support of grassroots party members yet is opposed in office by an increasing number of professional career politicians determined to challenge him and by inference those who voted for him.

To my mind this simply confirms that the MPs involved either feel that being elected somehow automatically confers insight and wisdom collectively absent in those who elected them or that they are willing to sacrifice principles to enhance their personal careers, neither explanation is palatable.

What happened to the principle of MPs being the voice of the electorate? As the last General Election graphically demonstrated, there is a mass of people eligible to vote who don’t as they feel disenfranchised from a UK system of governance that in my lifetime has degenerated into a two-party “Punch and Judy” show where Punch and Judy have gradually morphed into unisex characters indistinguishable from each other. It doesn’t matter if Jeremy Corbyn and his support are “wrong”; democracy must allow them the opportunity to express their opinion and in the recent past that has been absent.

A mainstream media that labelled Ed Miliband as “Red Ed” obviously wouldn’t recognise true socialism if it fell from the sky and landed on its face now launches ad hominem attacks on Mr Corbyn and warns that he risks turning the UK into a grey communist enclave; corporate scaremongering pure and simple. The Labour Party was founded to represent the working-class and it took years before it formed a government, what harm would it be if it spent some years in the wilderness if meanwhile it returned to Westminster MPs who actually spoke for the people and not the Party. Over the years the “party” has been given primacy over those it purports to represent and to my mind has bred a generation of politicians who have more interest in their own circumstances than those it is supposed to represent. That’s what the Labour leader needs to change and a start would be to recommend de-selection of any MP no matter how inflated their ego may be if they oppose him in public.

David J Crawford,

Flat 3/3, 131 Shuna Street,

Glasgow.

2.

Prime Minister David Cameron claims, without offering any supporting evidence, that the best way to keep the UK safe from internal attacks by Islamic State terrorists is for the UK to start bombing their bases in Racca in Syria. Surely nothing could be more illogical or further from the truth.

Have British governments and prime ministers learned nothing at all from the events of recent years? Look Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Clumsy interference in the quasi-religious internal affairs of Middle-Eastern Islamic nations does not solve these problems; it only makes them worse while bringing an increased chance of new terrorist attacks here. Pursuing al Queda in Afghanistan led to the deaths of 52 people in the 2005 London Tube bombings. Sleeping groups of IS supporters here will be surely be roused into action if we join in the Syrian bombings.

In the last year there have been over 8,000 long-range or drone bombing attacks on IS bases in Syria by the US, France and recently Russia. These have had little success in defeating the terrorists – on the contrary, they have simply brought homeland retribution, including the blowing up of the Russian civilian air liner with 224 deaths and the appalling killing of 130 innocent civilians in Paris two weeks ago. So in demanding parliamentary authority Mr Cameron has to explain how exactly the UK joining in such long-range bombings actually make us safer here at home? Surely the exact opposite is the case?

I believe it is now time to back off from such futile interventions. Instead we should demand that the other major Islamic nations such as Iran and Saudi Arabia get directly involved in sorting out the mess, particularly the long-running struggle between the Sunny and Shia which is the root cause of the problem. Non-Muslim western states should keep as far away as possible from getting directly involved in matters we do not really understand, and thus merely drawing the fire upon ourselves.

Iain AD Mann,

7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.