Today, Jeremy Corbyn elevated terrorist attacks from acts of medieval mass murder to the level of a political statement. He injected the slaughter of pop fans and their parents with the frisson of anti-imperialism. He may not have meant to do this, but he did. When he said in his speech this morning that terrorism at home is a response to British militarism overseas, he imbued that terrorism with political meaning, even with a smidgen of progressiveness. This violence is anti-war, he is suggesting. He’s in serious danger of giving Salman Abedi a posthumous moral boost.
Corbyn called for honesty about the ‘connections’ between ‘wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home’. He didn’t deny that the terrorist who plants a bomb in Britain bears ultimate responsible for his murderous behaviour — this is not about ‘reduc[ing] the guilt of those who attack our children’, he said — but he did say that our foreign policy motivates them.
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