Hey, I get
Welcome orbiting the world with me,
George Galloway, and me, Gayatri. They
labored mightily and brought forth a
mouse. As Horus himself might have put
it, about the much anticipated reshuffle
of Jeremy Corbin's four-month-old shadow
cabinet. He felt he needed a reshuffle,
of course, and he did. Not least because
the first ones spent as much time
undermining and even plotting against
his leadership as they did actually
performing as the official opposition.
For me, Corbin has failed to remove a
raft of people he should never have
appointed in the first place, and for
the same reasons he did appoint them in
the first place, fear of the
consequences. The only change of
substance was the appointment as shadow
defense minister of Emily Thornbury or
Lady Nugi of Islington to give her her
proper title. She is apparently
allegedly an opponent of the renewal of
the super expensive Trident nuclear
missile system. Although
I cold war chinless wonders wagging
their non-existent chins and that's it.
Unless you include the sacking of a man,
Michael Duger, whom no one had ever
heard of from a job shadow culture
secretary which no one knew he had in
the first place. Joining us now to
discuss the state of play is former Tony
Blair aid and a man with his finger on
the pulse of the inner party struggle,
John McTurnon. John, welcome back to
Sputnik. Last time you were here, you
said there was no conspiracy because if
there was, you'd have been at it. There
was no candidate and there was no
project. Does all of that still hold?
That still that still stands except that
Jeremy Corbin in the absence of an
opposition candidate to him has created
one Hillary Ben. He has by choosing to
brief against Hillary Ben saying he will
sack him and then backing down when
Hillary says I won't move or resign. He
strengthened Hillary. Hillary has gone
from somebody that people knew as a nice
guy into
being maybe the Clement Atley of the
Labor Party, the man who will replace um
the pacifist. Um well, that's an
interesting comparison because uh uh
he's definitely no Spartacus. I've known
Hillary Ben for more than 30 years and
he's no Spartacus. He's no Tony Ben. Uh
but he might be an Atly kind of
centrist, rather dull figure. Maybe he
could even start smoking his dad's pipe.
Uh because Hillary Ben's the only man to
emerge in this picture. None of the
other rebels either in or out of the
shadow cabinet are taller today than
they were the last time we spoke. Well,
I think the I think the other person
who's emerged with some dignity out of
the is Pat McFaden because Jeremy Corbin
extraordinarily told him why he was
sacking him. He was sacking him for
saying that terrorists who kill people
are responsible for their own actions.
Now clearly that means that Jeremy
thinks terrorists who kill people aren't
responsible for their own actions. And I
can't think of a single voter who agrees
with Jeremy on that. They all agree with
Pat McFaden who was doing a great job as
Minister for Europe, but now standing as
the great person who stands for
anti-terrorism, stands for national
security in the Labor Party and was
sacked for it. Well, yeah. I mean, I I
knew Pat McFaden when he was a
communist, and I've known him as a
Celtic supporter since he was a boy. Uh,
and so I don't necessarily endorse the
rest of what you said. But it begs a
question, why does the leader have to
explain to people that he's sacking, why
he's sacking them, especially if the
reason is one there's going to be rope
to hang yourself with? Well, the
extraordinary thing is um the best ever
sacking was one of Atley's where a
minister said to him, "Why are you
firing me?" And he looked at the
minister and he said, "Not up to it."
And went back to his papers. That that
is all you need to say as a leader.
That's all you need
to all you actually have to say is I'm
the leader of the party and I've decided
that I want somebody else in your uh
position. Like uh Lady Nugi for example
uh this new shadow defense secretary.
What does she know about defense? What
is what is what are her I think the
qualifications in in one sense nobody
has qualifications when they take up a
job. They have to learn the job. The
thing we do know is she doesn't like
seeing the English flag, the George's
Cross. We know that I'm I'm looking
forward to the first time she goes on a
visit to see squatties in their barracks
where she take photographs of their
George's crosses standing above their
bunk beds and go, she doesn't like that
either. this there. You know, if you
wanted one thing to symbolize that
Jeremy Corbin really doesn't
rid of people from the north of England,
from Yorkshire, replacing them with
somebody, another person from Isington.
It looks more and more like a dinner
party set, not a shadow cabinet. And
yet, the odd thing is she'd never have
Jeremy Corbin at her dinner parties. And
Jeremy Corbyn wouldn't go to dinner
parties. As we know from his first wife,
he preferred to eat beans cold out of a
tin whilst watching a political
documentary. So Jeremy himself is not a
part of the Islington set. It's
therefore all the more odd that he
should give such a portfolio to Lady
Nagi. But that then goes to this other
question which is what is the picture
that Jeremy wanted to to to to paint of
himself and the party and the shadow
cabinet through this reshuffle. Normally
you try and establish authority. He's
shown weakness in the face of Hillary
Ben. Normally you want to show that
you've got a kind of unity of talent.
What you seem to have is a kind of unity
of mediocrity. Uh normally you want to
set a direction but this was a reshuffle
about defense, terrorism, security,
foreign policy, Syria. Whereas the big
issues in Britain are about domestic
policy. They're about health, the junior
doctors. They're about flooding the
environment. They're about capital
investment. They're about the railways.
They're about railfares. That's what's
very strange about this. The
battleground should be domestic policy.
And what you've had is Jeremy showing
this reshuffle. one, incompetence, but
two, my real concern is to purify my
shadow cabinet on issues of foreign
policy, defense, and security. They are
important, but they are not the
battleground for the next 18 months. I'm
wondering why they even need such big
shadow teams. If you don't have enough
people that you can depend on, trust,
and who are on the same line as you,
just shrink the team. We've now got a
situation where Sky News can describe
three resigning shadow junior ministers
as senior shadow junior ministers. I'm
not sure how you become one of those,
but uh um it seems to me that in a
situation where only 50 60 MPs are
really with the leader, why not just
make your team smaller? Well, there's a
big question about are there too many
ministers in the government? the
government's the size it is because
Cameron has created jobs in the cabinet
or attending cabinet to manage having
enough women in the cabinet or to manage
the politics of making sure Boris
Johnson can say he attends cabinet. Um
and then this kind of way of bloating up
government to pay favors is being
used about the whole of Jeremy's
operation. There doesn't appear to be
the discipline. Why if you're going to
sack people tell them for 3 weeks over
Christmas when there's no other news?
You're going to sack them. Let them
prepare. If you want to sack somebody,
make it a surprise. um just tell them on
the morning they come back to work,
sorry, you're fired on clearing your
desk. It's there's a there's for
somebody who's surrounded by people who
come
from an organized end of the left of the
Labor Party, they're very disorganized.
Well, that's interesting. What happens
now, John? Um no candidate, maybe
Hillary Ben emerging as one, no real
project, uh and no real hazardous belly.
There's no no immediate trip wire that's
going to provoke a move. Do you
therefore think that we're we're stuck
in in this now until 2020?
Well, you may be the trip wire the Kaz
belly. Uh if you become mayor of London,
uh I think a defeat in London for
Sadique Khan would be a very bad thing
for Jeremy Corbin. London is a labor
city. London moved Labor in 2015 even
despite the defeat uh in the general
election. To lose London again to
somebody as weak as Zach Goldsmith would
be very bad for Corbin. I think Trident
may be a trigger. What's happened is
Hillary Ben is stronger. What if Corbyn
tries to impose before conference a
change in policy on Trident? That will
then lead to a big rupture inside the
the cabinet, the shadow cabinet. The
vote on Trident, well, it's in the hand
it's in the hands of the Tory
government. Uh they should have had it
in the last parliament, but the Liberal
Democrats wouldn't allow it. So they'll
have it at the point at which they'll
cause the maximum mischief. The reason
Corbyn can't bring it to conference is
that Unite have got a conference policy
in favor of Trident because they employ
the workers in Barrow who who build the
boats and they employ workers uh in
Fazlane who maintain the boats.
So Trident could be Trident Trid Trident
could be erupted because why would Len
McCcluskey want to go against his own
conference and his own members to back a
man he didn't even want to be the leader
of the Labour party Jeremy Corbin and
it's it's these things which are
unforced errors uh appointing Hillary
Ben was a sort of damic lead as I think
you've said
before not sacking
him is strengthening him and it gives an
issue trident on which Ben is in line
with not just the public, not just the
PLP, but Labor Party policy. And so if
you give uh somebody this chance to
campaign to defend Labor Party policy
against the leader, that is a flash
point. That's a potential flash point.
And again, there'll be you going to sack
me? Are you going to keep me and then
say there's conditions to me staying? I
think that's the problem. The FL There
probably is no long there's no there's
no candidate yet, but maybe Hillary.
There's no project yet, but maybe it is
um going to emerge. Some people are
doing some thinking uh on the moderate
side. Um this year, this year, this year
will be interesting. Well, it's going to
be interesting not just in the Labor
Party. I know that's
your but uh the latest poll on European
Union referendum indicates that there
might be from the European Union, which
you and I know will open a new uh front
in Scotland. uh but will also open a
chasm into which David Cameron would be
bound to fall. I would have thought so
2016
going to be a very momentous year. Yeah,
it's going to be a fascinating year from
that point of view because there are
tensions and ruptures in both part both
major parties and the only space in
which they uh which the success of the
Tory government is implementing Blareite
policies in education and health.
They're working fine. everywhere else is
kind of the mess of Europe or the mess
of universal credit or the mess of the
cuts and infrastructure and flooding or
there's no safe I mean there's no safe
ground for for David Cameron throughout
this whole year and we could be looking
at something very different in this time
next year in uh 2017. Well, uh it could
be uh cataclysmic for the British state
coming out of Europe, then breaking up
with Scotland uh voting finally for to
join the Europe, uh separation on the
grounds of Europe, uh challenges to the
Labour leader, challenges to the
Conservative leader. We're not going to
go out of business anytime soon. This is
full employment for political
commentators. Thanks very much for
coming on board this book, John McTurn.
Coming up next, are we on the brink of a
war in the Middle East between Iran and
Saudi Arabia? Time to sit up and take
notice after the
break. Welcome back. Following the
burning down of the Saudi consulate in
Mashhat and the partial destruction of
the Saudi embassy in Thran, Saudi Arabia
has broken diplomatic relations with
Iran. a move which has been aped by
almost all of its Gulf allies. The
proximate cause is of course the attacks
on their diplomatic property, a crime
under international law. But Saudi
Arabia anticipated that when it beheaded
47 men in a single day, New Year's Day,
one of them, the most senior Shia cleric
in Saudi Arabia, Sheh Nimmer al- Nimmer.
And behind that are the proxy wars being
fought in Syria and Yemen between the
two regional giants. And behind that is
the age-old struggle for if not the soul
then at least the direction of the
Muslim world. Joining us to discuss this
is Sami Ramadani of London Metropolitan
University, an Iraqibborn political
activist and expert. Sammy, thanks for
joining us again on the Sputnik. The war
of words and diplomatic uh withdrawals
and dismissals uh is one thing. Uh but
in Yemen, we have the real possibility
following the alleged bombing of the
Iranian embassy by Saudi jets that this
war of words can become a war of fire
and lead. uh ever since the new king uh
assumed power in last January it's it's
his anniversary year uh this January uh
Saudi Arabia has taken on a different
much more open much more aggressive uh
uh role historically the Saudi royal
family has always been discreet in its
role very important role politically
financially and so on but discreet they
don't want to hit the headlines
But with the arrival of the new monarch
and the ousting of the previous uh
princes and princesses from power, this
new Saudi uh faction of the royal family
has decided to go all out in terms of
the attack on Yemen, in terms of
insisting on regime change in Syria and
so forth. And uh Iran is not a country
that takes such things lying down. Uh,
is there going to be uh an actual
outbreak, you think, of of hot war? I
think unless the Saudis are stupid
enough to attack Iran, I don't think
Iran will escalate to the extent of
having an all-out war. I mean any
observer of the political scene in the
Middle East would have noticed that Iran
over several years now have been trying
very hard to reach some sort of a a a
concordant or some sort of an agreement
with the Saudi uh uh rulers but they
made a little bit of progress under King
Abdullah and that has been blown us
under with the arrival of Kingdom
suspended indefinitely. It was thought
the beheading of the Shia cleric Nimal
Nimmer, but the new king went ahead in
this night of the long swords on uh on
New Year's Day. My big question to you
is this. Is this authorized or not? I'm
working on the assumption that Saudi
Arabia is a client state of the United
States of America even though the
financial relationship is the other way
around. Uh so is Saudi Arabia doing what
it's doing in Syria, in Yemen, and now
internally and visav Iran with United
States approval or not? I think the
United States is playing a dual game
with Iran. This is my assessment of the
situation. On the one hand, they have
reached the nuclear deal um and they
appear to be pushing towards a rapo with
Iran. But on the other hand, and this is
decisive, I think Iran remains
strategically outside US control and US
uh influence and the United States has
not given up their strategy of having
regime change in Iran. And if regime re
regime change doesn't come through war
direct war which would have been
impossible because of the strength of
Iran because following the Iraq
occupation uh there was some talk of an
attack on Iran. And when the Israelis
two years ago started saying they will
attack Iran, Iran immediately says any
Israeli attack will be an open war with
the United States. And this is when
obviously the United States decided to
deescalate and reach eventually uh the
nuclear deal.
But a powerful state in the region, the
only state from the Russian borders to
the to the to Algeria which is strong
enough to oppose US policies in the
region. Iran remains a stumbling block
for US control of the entire Middle East
and beyond. So and regime change policy
I think is still in place but it's
happening through proxies and the Saudi
role in that sense fits in I think
within that scenario. I want to go
further into the actual execution of the
sheh. Go ahead. He's uh been executed
wide protest around the world obviously
mostly among the Shia communities. His
nephew it is. Yeah. Is now on death row
as well. What's going teenager facing
crucifixion? Absolutely. For attending a
rally on corruption of the governments.
Yes. So what's what's going to happen? I
think domestically
uh within Saudi Arabia there is an
intense conflict within the royal family
and that conflict became really uh
surprisingly in the open once King
Salman took over power and last January
last year and his immediate act was to
purge uh King Abdullah's wing if you
like faction of the royal family and
this is not a tensy minor type of
faction very powerful faction within the
royal family and I think one of the
propelling reasons force the Saudis to
act in this aggressive way is to paper
over this serious crack within the royal
family Saudi Arabia is a real paradox
though isn't it at one in the same time
it is best friends with America it is
warming up its relations Even with
Israel, albeit on a semi secret level,
right? It is a major customer of western
weapons and so on. It has all its money
in the banks of the United States and so
on. And yet it is the fountain head of
the most extreme interpretation of
Islam, this Wahhabist ideology, uh,
which has spawned al-Qaeda and later
ISIS. That's right. Uh, how does it
manage to walk that tight rope?
I think the tight rope appears to be
such a narrow tight trope but in reality
it's not. Saudi Arabia was given license
by the United States post World War II.
Uh obviously we all know about Saudi
financial power and the importance of
oil to the west and to the United States
and so on. But one thing that needs to
be also examined is the political role
of Saudi Arabia that was envisaged by
previous former US presidents starting
significantly with Truman, President
Truman and followed on by President
Eisenhower uh
1953 onwards. And Eisenhower in his
memoirs stresses the important political
role of Saudi Arabia and how he himself
suggested to the Saudi king that Saudi
Arabia should play a big leading role in
the Islamic world by actually
establishing a worldwide Islamic
organization. Um obviously Wahhabism
that you mentioned it's uh it is a a
small small small minority of uh Sunnis
in the world. It has been the financial
power of the Saudis in terms of
spreading in little pamphlets, not even
the Quran, in little pamphlets, this
extremely socially backward, anti-women,
anti-child, you name it. And they tried
post World War II with the encouragement
of the United States to oppose primarily
socialist movements and progressive
secular movements and nationalist
movements. These were, if you like, the
dreaded enemies of US control of the
region, western control of the region in
general. And the Saudis were given
enormous leeway in terms of spreading
this reactionary thought as opposed to
the any chance of progressive
development, democratic development
especially within the Middle East and
the environment, Pakistan for example.
So this Saudi role acquired a new
dimension after the occupation of Iraq
and previous to that the occupation of
Afghanistan where Saudi Arabia was
financially backing al-Qaeda and
Afghanistan and later on terrorist
organizations within Iraq to to in
effect what the Saudis were doing were
weakening the resistance to occupation
by encouraging these sectarian
organizations.
eventually terrorist organizations which
fragmented the Iraqi people's opposition
to occupation and resistance occupation
and on Syria as soon as the United
States made public regime change policy
the Saudis and the Qataries moved in. In
terms of the political forces in the
region, the Saudis historically,
especially post World War II, relied on
the Muslim Brotherhood very heavily.
From the beginning of the 1990s, they
stopped funding the Muslim Brotherhood.
Qatar took over and Qatar became the
main finance of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The new king, King Salman, and this is
important to watch, has reversed that.
He's an old friend of the brotherhood.
Now the Saudis have uh rembraced the
Muslim Brotherhood and are relying on
them to be to act like before as a
political political movement with some
grassroots I must uh say whether uh
across across the Middle East and in
Turkey as well. And this new new
strategy harks back to post World War II
uh political activity of uh of the
Saudis especially after the failure of
the Salafi and so on that they tried to
encourage as opposed to the brotherhood
and their Qatar masters. Now they are
back in the fold with the Saudis and the
Saudis are playing uh this role and you
are right to point out that uh that the
United States is not far off this the
war on Yemen would have been impossible
without without your support. Well um if
if hot war breaks out we might have to
bring you back next week but that's
okay. I hope it doesn't I hope it
doesn't. I hope it doesn't. Thanks very
much. Well, Sami Ramadani.
And now it's your turn to tell us what
you think through the portals of social
media. What's rattling guy? Well, big
changes in the Labour party this week,
huh? Speak to me of truth says, "A few
rotten apples fell from the tree. Maybe
it sends the right message." And Pleti
says, "Well, despite this all, Jeremy
Corbin has, in my opinion, an admirable
inner strength." uh the Saudi Arabia
Iran matter in the on the other hand
Assaf Bay says that Saudi Arabia will
end up with belly up and Muhammad Saman
says well an already screwed up Middle
East will get further screwed up because
of the lack of leadership quality well
from the Atlantic to the Gulf the Arab
world is totally messed up that's alas
all that we've got time for this week
which means unfortunately that's the end
of the show you can stay in touch with
us though on Twitter at
RT_Sputnick and on Facebook Sputnik on
Russia Today. It's goodbye from me,
Gayatri, and from me, George Galloway.
It's been marvelous.