As NATO heads convene in London on Tuesday for a security summit, few can forget US President Donald Trump’s antipathy towards the Labour leader. In a radio interview with Nigel Farage on LBC at the end of October, the US President passed unequivocal judgement on the prospect of a Labour government. He said: “Corbyn would be so bad for your country, he’d be so bad, he’d take you on such a bad way.

“He’d take you into such bad places. Your country has tremendous potential.

“It’s a great country.”

This has caused security experts to raise concerns about the impact a Corbyn-led Government would have on intelligence sharing between the two NATO allies.

Speaking to Mark Urban on BBC’s Newsnight on Monday, the former UK National Security Advisor, Sir Mark Lyall Grant said: “I am more concerned that if the United States decided that the British Government was no longer to be trusted with secrets, then they would cut us off potentially from some intelligence.

“That would be damaging to our national security and that is a concern.”

The former Foreign Secretary, William Hague, added his voice to those concerned that a Jeremy Corbyn premiership would fatally weaken Britain’s security.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Hague accused Mr Corbyn of being “ideologically unwilling to take any step to defend the Western world.”

The former Foreign Secretary stressed the vital importance that NATO played in defending the West from its enemies, claiming that the organisation is “as vital to our future as it has been to our past.”

JUST IN: Sturgeon savaged for pretending ’Brexiteers in Scotland don’t exist’

He highlighted the threats posed to the West and its political values by a resurgent and belligerent Russia and a more assertive China.

He argued that the alliance would need strengthening and that political leadership was as important as military power in securing both the organisation’s future and that of democratic societies.

Mr Hague wrote: “The survival of free and open societies will depend crucially on our ability to strengthen the Western alliance.

“And that is going to need political leadership as well as military capabilities, for armed forces are of limited use and alliances rapidly erode if political leaders do not believe in their purpose.”

DON’T MISS

BBC Jo Coburn schools Labour candidate on her own party manifesto [Update]
Corbyn: Ex-Labour voters explain why they won’t be voting for party [Latest]
Pound US dollar exchange rate steady, UK manufacturing PMI contracts [Analysis]

While insisting that Boris Johnson could be trusted to uphold the UK’s strong contribution to NATO, he questioned the Labour leader’s commitment to do the same.

He said: “Every Labour government from Attlee to Brown has made a strong contribution to Nato and so has every Tory administration.

“It is certain that Boris Johnson would continue that tradition, perhaps even more energetically in the light of Brexit.

“The Labour leader in this election is, however, unlike any before him in the post-war world.

“His statements and votes on conflicts, alliances and world affairs would have been as repugnant to Clement Attlee or James Callaghan as they are today to Tony Blair.”

“At the leadership hustings in 2015 he couldn’t think of a circumstance in which Britain would use its Armed Forces”.

The former Tory leader added: ”So what about if an ally is under attack?

“Or British nationals need rescuing when taken hostage?

“Or a foreign state is collapsing into genocide?”

Source: Read Full Article