Well THAT'S a relief! Jeremy Corbyn HAS appointed a 'minister for peace' with a brief to end 'violence and conflict' around the world

  • Corbyn pledged during leadership campaign to appoint peace minister
  • Has now installed Leeds MP Fabian Hamilton to what he sees as key role
  • The frontbench post has the aim of 'reducing violence, war and conflict'
  • Tory MP says 'absurd' and Corbyn can't be trusted with national security

By James Tapsfield, Political Editor For Mailonline

Published: 06:15 EST, 8 November 2016 | Updated: 07:38 EST, 8 November 2016

Jeremy Corbyn has made good on his pledge to create a shadow minister for 'peace and disarmament', it has emerged.

The Labour leader has appointed Fabian Hamilton to the key role in his team, with a brief to 'reduce violence, war and conflict'.

Mr Corbyn, a lifelong CND member, declared during his campaign to be re-elected to the party's top job that he wanted a 'change in attitude' on foreign policy.

Fabian Hamilton, MP for Leeds North East, has been appointed by Jeremy Corbyn to what the Labour leader sees as a key role 

But Tories dismissed the move as 'absurd' and said it would risk undermining the nation's security. 

In a documentary made by his left-wing ally Ken Loach in September, Mr Corbyn said: 'There has to be a change in attitude on foreign policy.

'It's too easy to build up a kind of patriotic fervour and say we're going to go in there and sort it out.

'It's very easy to send someone else's son or daughter off to a place of danger when you're not doing it yourself. 

'I have spent my life opposing these things and want to see a foreign policy based on peace, based on democracy, based on human rights, based on justice.

'In the ministerial things we may well be appointing in the future let's have a minister for disarmament and a minister for peace as well who is pursuing those things around the world and looking to enforce the non-proliferation treaty rather than pretending it's an obstacle to re-armament.'

Mr Corbyn said he hoped the 'neoliberal agenda' of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan was coming to an end and said: 'This is historical justice time.'

Mr Hamilton, MP for Leeds North East, was installed in the role last month as Mr Corbyn reshuffled his team after securing a huge new mandate from Labour activists.

But at the time he was described as a foreign affairs and defence spokesman, rather than as shadow minister for peace.

In a statement on on the Facebook page of his local party, Mr Hamilton said he had been offered the job of 'shadow minister for peace and disarmament'.

'The role is unusual because no such post exists in government, but the Labour leader has made peace and disarmament his major international priorities - and I also share his belief that these are important aims, especially given what is happening in so many parts of the world today,' he wrote.

Mr Hamilton said he would be participating in multilateral disarmament meetings at the UN in New York. 

Many Labour frontbenchers, including shadow defence secretary Nia Griffith, are keen to 'move on' from the issue of Trident renewal despite Mr Corbyn's implacable opposition to the nuclear deterrent.

Jeremy Corbyn is a supporter of unilateral disarmament and says he wants a 'change in attitude' on foreign policy

The party's official policy is to support maintaining the deterrent.

Instead they want to focus on striking agreements to reduce stocks of the weapons worldwide.

Mr Hamilton will also prioritise reducing supplies of of guns and other weapons worldwide.

'This is a major new position which I hope will show that Labour is strongly committed to helping reduce the violence, war and conflict in the world which shatters and destroys so many innocent lives every day,' he wrote.

But Tory MP Sir Gerald Howarth said: 'It is a complete absurdity to appoint a minister for peace.

'What are they going to do, go around and be nice to people?

'That is not the way the world works. We face a pretty unprecedented time of international tesnion with British armed forces on operations as we speak.

'It is simply peacenik Corbyn posturing and putting the nation's defence at risk, were the nation ever to be so foolish as to give him he keys to No10.' 

 

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