At last we are beginning to see clear blue water emerging.
Going into the 2015 election we will be able to say they are pacifist, proto-isolationist, and that they entirely repudiate Blair's foreign policy.
It's probably not possible (at this moment) to call them appeasers, although their former leader did cosy up to Assad, and their current leader is refusing to act against him.
More problematic (because the implications are not entirely clear) is the charge that in a moment of international crisis they refused to stand with the government, thus breaking the convention of consensus over military action.
Are we seeing from the Opposition a principled and ethical stand on foreign policy? Or has the debate over the past week been a form of regression therapy for the Labour party taking them back to the Iraq debacle and resulting in a form of breakdown in the Labour leadership. The Shadow Cabinet is not yet a collective whimpering shivering jelly, but there is a risk that they will be portrayed as such.
Going into the 2015 election we will be able to say they are pacifist, proto-isolationist, and that they entirely repudiate Blair's foreign policy.
It's probably not possible (at this moment) to call them appeasers, although their former leader did cosy up to Assad, and their current leader is refusing to act against him.
More problematic (because the implications are not entirely clear) is the charge that in a moment of international crisis they refused to stand with the government, thus breaking the convention of consensus over military action.
Are we seeing from the Opposition a principled and ethical stand on foreign policy? Or has the debate over the past week been a form of regression therapy for the Labour party taking them back to the Iraq debacle and resulting in a form of breakdown in the Labour leadership. The Shadow Cabinet is not yet a collective whimpering shivering jelly, but there is a risk that they will be portrayed as such.
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