Jeremy Corbyn

• Open letter to the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter:

Dear General Sir Nicholas Carter

WE are members of the Labour Party from Finsbury Park Ward, in Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency.

As residents of the ward where our MP and friend lives, the video of soldiers from the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment using a poster of Jeremy Corbyn as a target during shooting practice has upset and alarmed us.

This incident has brought to mind a number of questions of concern to us, particularly in the context of the murder of Jo Cox MP, in 2016, the recent plot to murder Rosie Cooper MP, using a machete and the recent assault on Jeremy Corbyn at a mosque in this vicinity.

We welcome the condemnation by army chiefs of the actions of the soldiers involved and the investigations that will be undertaken including, we hope, of the soldiers’ senior officers.

We are also gratified by the recognition that the British armed forces as such should not be involved in the political life of this country, bearing in mind the words of an anonymous “senior serving general” in September 2015 – a week after Jeremy Corbyn had been elected leader of the Labour Party.

He was cited by the Sunday Times as saying that if Corbyn became prime minister, there would be “the very real prospect” of “a mutiny”.

Therefore, we are concerned about what this video reveals in respect to the existing culture and mind-set within parts of the armed forces.

In our view, to use an image of our MP as a target in their shooting practice was indicative of a lack of respect for the life of a person, including a politician with whom they may strongly disagree politically.

To then unashamedly circulate a video on social media reveals a similar lack of understanding of the significance of their actions, both in terms of the enactment of a simulated assassination of this politician, but also a denial of the democratic process by which this politician could be elected prime minister.

Our concern has been further compounded by an article which appeared in the Mail OnLine of April 3 2019 in which Ex-Colour Sergeant Trevor Coult, when interviewed, said: “It should never have gone online. But it was tomfoolery, nothing serious.”

In one respect, in the long run we believe it may have been beneficial that the video was posted online as it revealed a culture of which we were unaware existing within some sections, at least, of our armed forces.

We are writing to you to request that you investigate, not only the soldiers and their officers, but also the culture which allowed these soldiers to feel there was nothing untoward about performing their target practice in this way.

We are aware of the tremendous pressures and sacrifices the members of our armed forces have endured over the past two decades, but we also feel that at all times the respect for human life should be paramount in their minds.

We also consider that there needs to be an inquiry into the attitudes of senior officers in the armed forces to ensure that they will not use the military to subvert our democratic political system for which the United Kingdom is respected in so many parts of the world.

JENNY KASSMAN, N7
Plus 20 other signatories, names supplied