Corbyn’s view is skewed against the Arab world

If Jeremy Corbyn ever becomes Britain's prime minister, Khalaf Al Habtoor says it will be a bad day for the Gulf countries.

Britain's opposition Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, listens at the close of the Labour Party conference at Brighton, Britain on September 30, 2015. Toby Melville / Reuters

When I heard David Cameron’s reaction to the election of the new leader of the British Labour Party, I dismissed it as a tactic designed to undermine his rival.

“Labour are now a serious risk to our nation’s security, our economy’s security and your family’s security,” he warned.

But after scrutinising this former backbencher’s record and listening to his speeches, I share Mr Cameron’s concerns.

Should Jeremy Corbyn ever make it to Downing Street, Britain’s stature will be diminished and its relations with the US, the EU, the Gulf states and Egypt will be strained to breaking point.

Great Britain would be reduced to an inconsequential island or a fringe state without its membership of Nato or powerful allies willing to come to its defence.

Mr Corbyn, a slightly dishevelled-looking activist, has succeeded in charming the party faithful with self-effacing humour and has elicited praise for standing up for the rights of workers and poor families.

The old guard among his party’s establishment are chomping at the bit. They want him gone. His refusal to sing Britain’s national anthem was regarded as an embarrassment. Worse, Mr Corbyn has alienated the US with a public announcement that 9/11 was “manipulated” as a pretext to invade Afghanistan.

He also has some very unsavoury friends and associates, among them the leaders of Iran, as well as those of Hizbollah and Hamas, whom he was once “honoured” to invite to Parliament.

In August, he was scheduled to speak at a conference in Britain where he would have shared a stage with Anas Al Tikriti, who allegedly has links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

A piece published in July in the British newspaper The Telegraph says it all: “If Jeremy Corbyn wins, Labour will be in the extraordinary position of having a leader with the most extensive links in Parliament to terrorists.”

Syed Salman Safavi, an aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has praised Mr Corbyn and for his plan to pull Britain out of Nato, according to another piece published in the same newspaper. Naturally, a toothless country without diplomatic clout or the nuclear weapons capability that assures its place among the UN Security Council members, would serve Iran’s purposes.

And as for Mr Safavi’s statement that Iran – the region’s prime aggressor in Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Yemen – could bring peace to the Middle East, well, that is nothing less than a bad joke when the ayatollah has sworn to increase his support for “the resistance”.

Mr Corbyn has previously hosted a political chat show on Press TV, the Iranian channel, which continually spews out anti-Saudi and anti-Bahraini propaganda, and which has been removed from the UK’s airwaves.

He used his speech at the annual Labour Party conference to attack Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on their human rights record and called upon Mr Cameron to prevent the kingdom’s authorities from using the death penalty – as though any British leader has the right to interfere in the affairs of a sovereign country.

Some have also asked whether Gulf investors should worry about Jeremy Corbyn? If he ever becomes prime minister, I would answer a resounding yes given his anti-Arab rants.

Mr Corbyn looks humble and sounds authentic yet if you look carefully, you will see that his belligerence against the Arabian Gulf countries echoes that of Press TV and other Iranian media outlets. I would caution investors from this part of the world to be ready for a surprise upset.

I have no message for Mr Corbyn, his views are too entrenched. How can anyone trumpet concern for human rights with any authority when they appear to cuddle up to a regime like that of Iran, which subjugates its own people and treats its minority populations as second-class citizens whose rights are trampled upon?

Why does he ignore the dozens of imprisoned opposition party members, journalists and activists or the children awaiting their end on death row? Instead, he celebrates the Iran deal as a triumph for peace.

I would ask the British people to see through the facade and moreover, I would stress that his attacks on Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have no foundation. Both countries are threatened by Iran and its proxies and have the right to handle their security and deal with bad apples in the best way they see fit. The people of the Gulf enjoy the highest standards of living anywhere. Our people are looked after. Their needs are taken care of and those are the most important human rights of all.

I can only second David Cameron’s warning and urge the British electorate to beware of Mr Corbyn.

Khalaf Al Habtoor is chairman of the Al Habtoor Group