Originally Posted by
Melchett01
It would undoubtedly be an interesting dynamic when the intelligence community didn’t trust the PM - as I think would happen. Without opening up a detailed discussion, the question of national security, our place in the world and the UK’s ongoing association with the Five Eyes partnership would to my mind be at risk under a Corbyn administration. And given that all our recent operations have been conducted in an international / alliance context, that is a big issue.
Not that I would expect Corbyn or his acolytes to worry about that. They would probably be quite happy to sideline the entire intelligence and security architecture, citing an anti-democratic agenda.
And beyond our military partnerships and alliances how does all that translate? A lack of ‘Understanding’ (see JDP 4
https://assets.publishing.service.go...ing_jdp_04.pdf), some pretty questionable statecraft and a general mess in terms of our entire approach.
That seems sort of a replay of the US situation with Trump. He came into office facing exactly those issues.
In his case, it has taken him most of his first term just to get to a marginal situation, even though as C in C and Chief Executive, he has much more freedom than
a British PM.
So I'd expect a Corbyn administration to be deliberately boring. Just as Corbyn, an excellent tactician, has thus far been able to deflect or overcome numerous efforts to sideline him in politics, I'd expect the same in defense and intelligence.
Indeed, most likely he would start with a dollop of sugar and a dash of kindness for the Services, just to take the wind out of the sails of his more rabid opponents.
That would buy him time to come to grips with the reality of restoring a shrunken resource base and of re balancing the country's global commitments.