Had Jeremy Corbyn won the 2019 election, the Russian flag would probably already be flying over Kyiv, and President Volodymyr Zelensky would be mouldering in one of Putin’s dismal prisons.
If he were Prime Minister the former Labour leader would never have taken the lead in training the Ukrainian army and supplying military equipment, as Boris Johnson and the British Government have done since before the Russian invasion in February.
This much is clear from an interview which Corbyn gave on Tuesday to a Lebanese television station that is supportive of the pro-Russian Assad regime in Syria and the Iranian-supported terrorist group Hezbollah. Just the sort of broadcaster the grizzled old rascal is apt to favour.
Corbyn said that the West should stop sending weapons to Ukraine. ‘Pouring arms’ into the country would only ‘prolong and exaggerate’ the war against the Russian invaders, he declared.
That would be a virtual death sentence for Ukraine. For without continuing supplies of Western military equipment, its government would almost certainly be forced to capitulate in the face of Russia’s significantly greater resources.
Britain, it should be remembered, has sent more weapons to help President Zelensky than any other country except the United States. According to the Kiel Institute, the UK has supplied much more military aid — over £2.3 billion at the latest count — than France and Germany combined.
Not for the first time — and not for one reason alone — should we give thanks that Jeremy Corbyn was sent packing by voters nearly three years ago. If he had been in No 10, Vladimir Putin might not only be occupying the whole of Ukraine but also menacing Eastern Europe.
I’m pretty certain, incidentally, that a Corbyn government would have made a pig’s ear of the pandemic — which isn’t to say it went smoothly under the Tories. I very much doubt that, with Jeremy’s trembling hand on the helm, we would have had a vaccine roll-out before the EU got its act together. We’d probably still be mired in lockdown.
But let me return to Ukraine. Here I should warn readers of a nervous disposition to take a deep breath, and maybe get hold of a wet flannel to apply to brows which may very shortly be fevered.
Much as it pains me to say so, there is a nugget of sense in what the old Marxist says. You have to dig deep for it, to be sure, burrowing your way through a load of anti-Western nonsense and pro-Russian sympathies and soggy thinking. But, buried deep down, a nugget there most certainly is.
Corbyn is wrong to imply that Britain should never have led the way by sending weapons to Ukraine. And, for the reasons I have mentioned, he is equally wrong to suggest that we should suddenly pull the plug.
However — and this is the nugget — if Jeremy Corbyn is saying that Ukraine can never win this war, and that its government must therefore think in terms of an eventual settlement with Putin’s Russia — well, in that case he is absolutely correct.