Jeremy Corbyn backs former Archbishop of Canterbury’s crucial Christmas message

Former-Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams


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A former Archbishop of Canterbury has sent a crucial message to the UK government in time for Christmas this year. It calls for an end of the UK’s “direct complicity” in the war in Yemen.

Rowan Williams, now head of charity Christian Aid, branded the UK’s current position “moral nonsense”. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn backed the former archbishop’s message, quoting it on Twitter.

According to Save the Children, around 85,000 Yemeni children have been killed by famine as a result of the war since 2015.

Rowan’s article

The former archbishop had strong words for the government. He claimed the UK is chasing arms sales with regimes pursuing “murderous campaigns against their own citizens or their close neighbours”.

Williams also highlighted the hypocrisy of the UK’s aid spending alongside its large-scale sales of weaponry. The UK has sanctioned the sale of over £4.7bn worth of arms to Saudi since 2015. Meanwhile, the government has continued to spend hundreds of millions in aid for Yemen. In the article for the Guardian, Williams wrote:

If we want to avoid wasting our foreign aid funds, we must invest in secure institutions, just process, and above all the avoidance of armed conflict. We cannot do this if we are at the same time unapologetically resourcing war.

Alongside Labour, the SNP, Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru have all called for a suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. And Jeremy Corbyn was keen to share Williams’ words with his Twitter followers:

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‘Double standards’

Christian Aid released a report on 14 December highlighting the UK government’s “double standards”. The report called for an immediate end of “UK support to the Saudi coalition’s bombing campaign in Yemen”. It also demanded an end to arms sales to the country.

In a video released alongside the report, Williams challenged the government to become world leaders in “peacebuilding and peacemaking”:

The charity also commissioned a 16-metre high mural in London to drive the point home. The painting shows a young Yemeni boy beside a bag full of guns. The weapons are depicted as a Christmas present from the UK government:

Tide Turning

After four years of bloody war, the tide may finally be turning. In a historic move on 13 December, the US Senate voted to withdraw US support for the Saudi-coalition in Yemen.

The same day a crucial breakthrough was made as a ceasefire was agreed between the Saudi-backed Yemeni government and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the key port city of Hodeidah. UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said the agreement could be a “starting point for peace”.

We all hope the peace talks can finally bring an end to this catastrophic war. But the UK must be proactive in its actions. Germany, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands have all now halted arms sales to Saudi Arabia. It is time for Britain to act too.

Featured Image via National Assembly for Wales/Wikimedia

 

 

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  • Show Comments

    1. yet nothing about the plight of the poor here are they the forgotten lambs for the slaughter has many die at the hands of the government yet on its goes first put his own house in order then he can attack their humanity greed has this is the cause of it all greed I wonder do these bishops really now shots happening
      to their flock j eff3

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    2. Two irrelevant beardy pensioners talk to nobody – while the Eton Boys lead the country to Hell. I’m so glad I emigrated 20 years ago.

      So let me get this right?? One senile beardy wanker – who disdains to lift a finger while a cabal of Eton-schooled merchant bankers connive to make their Two-Tier Britain a legal reality – sits by and endorse a second senile beardy wanker – who says he believes the ghost of a 1st-century Jewish woodwork enthusiast is the solution to all of Britain’s problems?!?!?!

      BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

      You’re all too GUTLESS to get off your idiotic British arses!!! In FRANCE, at least the people have put on their yellow jackets, rallied in city centres, and aim to winkle the BANKER out of his Elysee Palace, and STRING HIM UP.

      Meanwhile in laughable, useless, wanker-led Britain, it’s “More tea, Bishop? Have another slice of Battenburg cake?!” while Jeremy & Rowan allow the Piss-Mopps and Bozos to raid your pensions, close down your industries, offshore your businesses, and sell the nation’s resources to the Chinese…. while selling arms to the Neanderthal Shit-Smelling Sheikh of Saudi Arabia, to murder children????

      YOU ALL DESERVE TO GO STRAIGHT TO HELL!!!

      Now press REPLY and tell me that buying the Guardian and offsetting your carbon use by planting organic kinoa in community farms in Wales is ‘doing your bit’???

      LAUGHABLE, LAUGHABLE, GUTLESS *SHITE*!!

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