Veteran leftie Jeremy Corbyn wants to hire a travelling Minister for Peace to persuade armies to put down their weapons
Jezza's frontbench plan, if he is re-elected as Labour leader, is revealed in a documentary made by the filmmaker Ken Loach
JEREMY Corbyn has pledged to create a new Minister for Peace to travel the world persuading armies to disarm.
The hard left Labour leader and CND supporter revealed his new frontbench plan, if he is re-elected on Saturday, on a promotional film made by veteran filmmaker Ken Loach.
He said: “There has to be a change in attitude on foreign policy.
“It is too easy to build up a kind of patriotic fervour and say, we’re going to go in there and sort it out.
It is very easy to vote to send somebody else’s son or daughter off to a place of danger, when you’re not doing it yourself – and so I have spent my life opposing these things and want to see foreign policy based on peace, based on democracy, based on human rights and based on justice.
“In the ministerial things that we may well be appointing in the future, let’s have a Minister for Disarmament and a Minister for Peace as well, who is pursuing those things around the world and looking to enforce the non-proliferation treaty rather than pretending that it is an obstacle to rearmament.”
But the arch-lefty was lampooned by Tories for calling for a “Minister for Peace” and “Minister for Disarmament”.
Johnny Mercer MP said: “It is clearer than ever that Labour cannot be trusted to keep our country safe.
“Abandoning trident, disbanding our armed forces and now a Minister for Disarmament.
“Freedom is not free.
“I do not want us to relearn our painful lessons of the past that required such great sacrifice.
“Labour are not a credible alternative government and they have nothing to offer as we work to build a country that works for everyone.”
While Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke said his call for a Minister for Peace “shows he does not have a clue”.
He added: “He doesn’t realise that the Foreign Secretary’s job is to bring about peace and to work with diplomatic services around the world, as we have seen this week with everybody at the UN this week.
“Once again, it shows Mr Corbyn is not only a million miles away from getting power, but if they got power it shows they simply do not understand how government works.
“His grasp for someone who has been in parliament for 30 years is worrying – and quite frankly no one can take seriously a party that does not understand what the Foreign Office and Department for International Development are there for.”