Opinion: The BBC question time debate, Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Saudi Arabia

Jeremy Corbyn is repeatedly attacked on his relationship with the IRA and Hamas, but why is Theresa May never questioned about Britain’s current weapon trade with Saudi Arabia?

If you followed the Twitter reactions to the BBC Question Time debate you will have noticed that our current prime minister Theresa May does not seem particularly popular. People were quick to notice that she wasn’t aware of where Britain sends its foreign aid, she answered the questions in the way we have become accustomed to (i.e. she changed the questions into something she wanted to answer), and it was pretty obvious that she has no idea what the social care cap is going to be because she wasn’t planning on having one until very recently.

Jeremy Corbyn, on the other hand, did seem rather popular. He was greeted with cheers, some people tweeted that he came across as a true prime minister (something I did not see anyone say about Theresa May), and he seemed like a real person whom you could relate to. His problems only really started later in the programme when he was asked two questions. 1: Is he prepared to push the red button and detonate the nukes if required, and 2: why does he not condemn the IRA?

In regards to pressing the red button, it is not a decision anyone wants to have to take. The decision to essentially blow up an entire region and potentially obliterate thousands of innocent people isn’t something to be taken lightly. It does seem a little surprising that Theresa May can’t discuss the numbers of our Brexit negotiations because it would ‘weaken our hand’ are met unchallenged but Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to confirm whether he would set off the nukes is somehow unacceptable.

It is obviously a difficult issue for him as he is someone who has been openly against nuclear weapons for decades, and it may be a concern for some people who are actively predicting world war three, but realistically it is probably not (hopefully not) something Jeremy Corbyn or any future PM would ever have to do, so it’s probably not the best issue to base your vote on.

Now the IRA terrorist attacks were clearly terrible. Over 3,600 people died and thousands more were injured. Innocent people with no influence over the conflict were killed. It was a scary thing to live through. People lost their lives and their loved ones. It has left a devastating effect that should never be brushed side.

But the thing about conflict is that it’s never as simple as you want it to be. People rarely do things because they ‘want to be evil’ and as terrible as their reasoning may be they do often have motivations and reasons behind their violence which you may have to discuss with them in order to prevent future violence.

In order to stop that kind of violence you will need to negotiate for a ceasefire in order to save more lives, and in the case of the IRA it doesn’t make a lot of sense to condemn any negotiations with terrorists if it did eventually result in something positive. You do sometimes have to negotiate with terrorists in the same way that you may need to negotiate with people you are at war with. You may win a war at battle but you can’t end a war without discussion. Jeremy Corbyn’s statement that ‘all deaths are terrible’ isn’t a particularly controversial thing to say.

These situations are nuanced and complicated and Jeremy Corbyn’s stance frankly isn’t that surprising or disturbing. If he says that the death toll on both sides is a regrettable thing that does not mean that he supported the IRA. It means that he doesn’t like violence and wants to avoid it where possible. It means that he probably knows something of British history and has come to the conclusion that Britain’s relationship with Ireland and Ireland relationship with itself is very complicated and, whilst you cannot condone the killing of innocent people on either side, it isn’t as simple as saying ‘these people were evil and deserved everything they got’. History is normally more complicated than that.

This may be a character flaw in your opinion, but it’s not exactly the same as sympathizing with terrorism is it? Jeremy Corbyn may well be too nice for his own good, but that’s hardly the worst thing you could say about someone. Would you rather someone who wants to end the war quickly or someone who wants to jump into straight away?

What I personally found surprising when watching the BBC debate was that people are always so quick to challenge Jeremy Corbyn’s relationship with the IRA in the ‘90s, but no one thought to ask Theresa May about our morally problematic relationship with Saudi Arabia in 2017.

It is not a secret that Britain sells weapons to Saudi Arabia. In 2016, Boris Johnson defended Britains sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and seemed to suggest that whilst we supply them with weapons we are also encouraging humanitarian law and if we stopped a less scrupulous country would simply take our place.

A parliamentary report from 2016 takes the view that a good relationship with Saudi Arabia allows us to ‘advance many of our shared and vital strategic interests’ which includes fighting ISIS, combating violent extremism, countering terrorist financing, and reaching a political resolution in Yemen. Theresa May recently defended our continued weapons trade because she insisted that our close ties with Saudi Arabia is important so we can “keep people on the streets of Britain safe”.

Now, this is a little strange as, according to Wikileaks, Saudi Arabia funds Isis. If our weapons trade is meant to keep us safe, how on earth is selling weapons to a country who may sell them on to ISIS fighters in Syria going to achieve that? A draft report from the Committee on Arms Exports Control called for an end to the arms sale and claimed that in regards to Yemen the ‘evidence of violations by the Saudi-led coalition … is so great that it is now difficult to continue to support Saudi Arabia.

Many organisations have called for the UK to stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia over fears of how those weapons are going to be used, particularly in regards to Yemen where those weapons were most probably being used to target civilians. These weapons are likely going to be used in violation of international law which would make the sale of those weapons illegal.

Boris Johnson, however, has claimed that the government has not seen sufficient evidence of Saudi war crimes.

Saudi Arabia also does not have a great record when it comes to the human rights of its own citizens. Torture is common. Criticising the government and engaging in peaceful activism can get you locked up. In 2016, women would still need the approval of a male guardian to get a passport, go to university, travel or get married. Women are also, of course, not allowed to drive. Public stoning and public beheading can be used as a ‘punishment’ for adultery. You can be stoned to death for sodomy.

The world is complicated, and there is no denying that a good relationship with Saudi Arabia is very beneficial for the U.K in terms of oil. It is also true that suddenly breaking all ties with Saudi Arabia wouldn’t force them to review their human rights violations either at home or abroad and it would strip the U.K of any power they may have ever had to influence either of these areas.

But it is surprising that Jeremy Corbyn’s links to terrorism, i.e. his claim that Hamas and Hezbolla were his friends and that all deaths are tragic, is somehow so much more shocking, dangerous and abhorrent then the fact that we may well have sold the very weapons that ISIS and other terrorist groups have been using in Syria. Can we say that Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘inclusive language’ with regards to Hamas is so much worse then our actively friendly relationship with Saudi Arabia?

Politics is complicated. The world is complicated. Sometimes you do have to talk to people who do terrible things. But if that is true for England’s continuing ties with Saudi Arabia in 2017, why is it not true for Jeremy Corbyn’s inclusive language and the people he met with 30 years ago?