Jeremy Corbyn rakes in £££ from torturers

A friend sent me this link to Jeremy Corbyn's register of interests on the TheyWorkForYou website. What caught my eye was that Corbyn has repeatedly accepted £5,000 payments from the Iranian propaganda arm Press TV and £5,000 payments from Al Jazeera, which is owned by the Al Thani dynasty, which is the ruling house of Qatar. I added it up and it looks like Jeremy Corbyn received £40,000 from the Iranian government and Qatari royal family from 2009 to 2012.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10133

Press TV has previously broadcasted televised confessions, obtained by torture, of people accused of being "spies for the Zionists and Americans"; I would have no problem saying that makes them complicit in torture. Perhaps even worse, the Al Thani dynasty uses torture to maintain control over Qatar, they have full Sharia law and homosexuality attracts the death penalty. The regime of Qatar has also provided significant funding to Al-Qaeda by way of the al-Nusra Front, and has been accused of funding ISIS.

Is it immoral to accept these payments? I don't understand how Corbyn can refuse to bow before the Queen on the basis that it's against his "principles", but accepting tens of thousands of pounds from torturers and despots is not.

It appears he has also accepted large amounts of money from the PPI/privatisation kings Capita (he receives a speaking fee of £150 a pop from them for an hour's lecture, and in some disclosure periods he's doing one of those every few weeks).

Thoughts?

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

driftawaay

Original post by woIfie

Why wouldn't he accept their money? I would gladly take free money from anyone, even if ISIS offered it to me.

Reply 2

jamestg

Original post by driftawaay

Why wouldn't he accept their money? I would gladly take free money from anyone, even if ISIS offered it to me.

Really? What about money from blood diamonds?

Reply 3

woIfie

Original post by driftawaay

Why wouldn't he accept their money?

Firstly, because it is utterly immoral to do business with those people. Jeremy Corbyn acts as though he is on a higher moral plane, and he is paid handsomely as an MP. It's not as though he's a starving student.

Secondly, it's not a free gift. He is expected to do something for that money, which would presumably mean appearing on Press TV and Al Jazeera and lending legitimacy to their propaganda operation.

Presumably you would also be happy for him to accept cash from investment banks and arms manufacturers? Maybe even from the Israeli government?

Reply 4

Fat Rudeboi

Corbyn comes across as shrewder than he appears. He has a chauffeur despite trying to seem "socialist"

Reply 5

woIfie

Original post by The Rad Prince

It's stupid when people say he exposes Western hypocrisy when we make deals with the Saudi Arabians, he is swinging from the nuts of the Iranians and they are infinitely worse.

Frankly, I was shocked by this because I thought he was wrong on many issues, but I did think he at least had a kind of internal consistency. That despite being misguided, he had a sort of principled and consistent approach.

Accepting money from the House of Al Thani, which hosts American bases and troops but also provides support to every sort of Islamic radical (from Hamas to Al-Nusra) shows he is a total hypocrite when he goes after the Saudi relationship. I don't know if the Iranians are worse than the Saudis; in some ways they are, in some ways they aren't.

But there is a huge gap between pointing out flaws and hypocrisy in American foreign policy, versus actually going to one of the most despotic regimes in the world simply because they are anti-American and accepting £20,000 from them.

Reply 6

Illiberal Liberal

You act like Western governments have never tortured, or been complicit in the torture of, anyone.

Original post by The Rad Prince

It's stupid when people say he exposes Western hypocrisy when we make deals with the Saudi Arabians, he is swinging from the nuts of the Iranians and they are infinitely worse.

in what sense?

elections?

number of people beheaded a year?

extent contributed to rise of IS?

letting women drive?

Curious.

Reply 7

The Rad Prince

Original post by Illiberal Liberal

You act like Western governments have never tortured, or been complicit in the torture of, anyone.

in what sense?

elections?

number of people beheaded a year?

extent contributed to rise of IS?

letting women drive?

Curious.

I like the bit where the Saudis don't want to nuke us

Reply 8

Illiberal Liberal

Original post by The Rad Prince

I like the bit where the Saudis don't want to nuke us

Forget I asked.

Reply 9

Fat Rudeboi

Original post by The Rad Prince

I like the bit where the Saudis don't want to nuke us

Reply 10

woIfie

Original post by Illiberal Liberal

You act like Western governments have never tortured, or been complicit in the torture of, anyone.

I think you're having a logic fail. I have spoken out against the use of torture, I fundamentally disagree with it.

Jeremy Corbyn has also proclaimed himself as opposed to torture, and yet he accepts £40,000 from regimes that engage in torture. Corbyn's whole USP was that he was different, that he was not tainted by grubby deals and the corruption of modern politics.

Your argument appears to be, "The United States tortured people during the early stages of the War on Terror, therefore it's okay for Jeremy Corbyn to condone other countries doing it if they are an enemy of the West". A weak and rather transparent attempt at whataboutery.

Reply 11

woIfie

Original post by Illiberal Liberal

extent contributed to rise of IS?

You mean like the way Qatar has contributed to the rise of ISIS and al-Nusra? The same Qatar on whose payroll Jezza is?

Reply 12

The Rad Prince

Original post by Fat Rudeboi

Dubai seems slightly tacky, but you gotta have love for the Gulf Arabs

[video="youtube;2uYs0gJD-LE"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uYs0gJD-LE[/video]

:cool:

Reply 13

Fat Rudeboi

Original post by The Rad Prince

Dubai seems slightly tacky, but you gotta have love for the Gulf Arabs

[video="youtube;2uYs0gJD-LE"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uYs0gJD-LE[/video]

:cool:

MIA

Its great when the Arabs come over to London with their supercars every Ramadan. :cool:

Reply 14

Illiberal Liberal

Original post by woIfie

I think you're having a logic fail. I have spoken out against the use of torture, I fundamentally disagree with it.

im glad

Jeremy Corbyn has also proclaimed himself as opposed to torture, and yet he accepts £40,000 from regimes that engage in torture. Corbyn's whole USP was that he was different, that he was not tainted by grubby deals and the corruption of modern politics.
he accepted £5000 from PressTV for doing interviews with them.

but yes, ideally he wouldn't have had any relations with PressTV.

Your argument appears to be, "The United States tortured people during the early stages of the War on Terror, therefore it's okay for Jeremy Corbyn to condone other countries doing it if they are an enemy of the West". A weak and rather transparent attempt at whataboutery.

that is not my argument

my point is that these dubious transactions are not unique to the theocratic states of the ME and leftist politicians

for example, look at the relationship between the conservatives and the saudis. selling them billions of £ of weapons so they (the richest country in the ME) can pulverise the poorest country in the ME

quite different from accepting a relatively minor sum from a dubious foreign news agency for an interview, wouldn't you say?

Original post by woIfie

You mean like the way Qatar has contributed to the rise of ISIS and al-Nusra? The same Qatar on whose payroll Jezza is?

That is not relevant to a comparison of the relative evils of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Reply 15

woIfie

Original post by Illiberal Liberal

he accepted £5000 from PressTV for doing interviews with them.

£5,000 for an interview? A bit above the going rate, no? In the register it says it is for "media work". I'm pretty sure he guest hosted on PressTV.

And it wasn't just £5,000.. it was repeated payments of £5,000 adding up to £40,000 in total from the Iranian government and Qatari royal family.

that is not my argument

Actually it appears that is exactly what your argument is given the fact America has tortured has no actual bearing on the morality of Corbyn accepting tens of thousands of pounds from torturers.

my point is that these dubious transactions are not unique to the theocratic states of the ME and leftist politicians

Did I say they were unique to leftist politicians? Is it possible to have a serious debate on any subject these days without someone whining, "Whatabout, whatabout, whatabout [insert pet cause here]"?

for example, look at the relationship between the conservatives and the saudis

Corbyn talks about that all the time. Which raises the question of why he is then accepting thousands of pounds himself from regimes like Iran and Qatar? If Corbyn wants to accept this money then it is what it is, but he can't then turn around and proclaim himself to be pure as the driven snow. He clearly has his own very grubby record on accepting cash from Middle Eastern regimes, and when you put together that record with his astonishing sanctimoniousness on the Saudi question this makes him a massive hypocrite

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 16

woIfie

Original post by Illiberal Liberal

That is not relevant to a comparison of the relative evils of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It is relevant that where you pointed out Saudi Arabia's record on links to extremist groups, I can also point out Jeremy Corbyn accepting money from a regime that funds al-Qaeda

Reply 17

MagicNMedicine

Why aren't the newspapers like the Sun investigating these issues instead of banging on about whether he bowed properly at the cenotaph...

Reply 18

woIfie

Original post by MagicNMedicine

Why aren't the newspapers like the Sun investigating these issues instead of banging on about whether he bowed properly at the cenotaph...

Agreed. I've paid close attention to Jeremy Corbyn and the media coverage, and I haven't seen any newspapers cover this. I first saw it on Harry's Place (an excellent anti-Islamofascist blog which has much coverage of terrorist sympathisers and pro-Islamist/pro-Putin nutters)

Reply 19

KimKallstrom

I didn't actually know he took money from Press TV of all people. Makes me have even less respect than I did before for him. Which was already practically none but still.

For those unaware of Press TV, I'd suggest looking it up. To sum up their editorial position on pretty much every topic in the world.....