by LEVENTE SZADAI & CSABA TOTH
Note from LeftEast editors: The following interview with Jeremy Corbyn was conducted by Levente Szadai and Csaba Tóth for Mérce on May 7, 2023, in Budapest, and published in Hungarian translation on May 9. We republish the lightly edited transcript as part of a collaboration within ELMO – The Eastern European Left Media Outlet.
When you became Labour leader in 2015, in one of your first speeches you thanked the “ordinary decent people of Hungary” for helping Syrian refugees. Today, eight years later, we are in quite a different world, surrounded by fences and mainstream politicians demanding the stopping of “small boats” on sea. What changed?
The first thing I did when I became leader, literally within an hour, was to go to a demonstration in the square in front of the British Parliament for “Refugees are welcome here.” And I made the point then that many people across Europe were doing everything to welcome refugees, which is what we should do, because they are victims of war and victims of the environment and victims of human rights abuse. Now what’s changed is that some people have carried on that great tradition, but populist politicians have decided that refugees are threatening our jobs, threatening our living standards. And in the case of Britain, they’re even claiming they’re threatening our health. It is horrible and abusive and ultimately very, very dangerous because if you create a sort of hatred towards refugees, then what are you saying about your own society? But I think we should put this in the context of Europe and the rest of the world. Now, tens of thousands of people have died crossing the Mediterranean. Many died trying to get into Greece from Turkey and a considerable number have died in the English Channel as well.
You or I would not willingly get into one of those boats unless we were totally desperate. And some sadly have died as a result of it. They are victims of war. But then, as I was saying in the speech this morning, there are 70 million refugees around the world. The vast majority are not in Europe, they’re not in any European country. They’re in Bangladesh, they’re in Uganda, they’re in Mexico, they’re in lots of countries all around the world. And Europe seems to think that by putting up naval defences, razor wire and surveillance you can keep refugees out. You’ve got to think it through. Why are there refugees? Why have they come from Afghanistan? Why have they come from Syria? Why have they come from Iraq? I think we all know the answer to that. It’s the wars.
How do we fight back against it? By campaigning, by being popular in our campaigning [for] saying that refugees are welcome and look at the contribution they make to our society. We are standing in front of this monument here [ed. n. Budapest’s Martyrs’ Memorial dedicated to resistance fighters, deserters, and the persecuted who were murdered on the bank of the Danube in the winter of 1944–45]. These were freedom fighters who gave their lives to free this country from the Nazis in 1944–45, only six months before the end of the war. They did it because they didn’t think there was anything else they could do to defeat them. Those people that who escaped Nazi Germany, and some did, went through the most terrible hardships. And they’re treated quite rightly as heroes, and their stories are understood. Are we going to wait till the next century before the stories of people crossing the Mediterranean in order to feed their families get written? So let’s get a sense of proportion about this, and what causes this. The majority of refugees are not in Europe, they’re elsewhere.
You’ve already mentioned war. We have a war going on in neighboring Ukraine, quite a great war. It is often argued that if we do not support Western intervention there, we are supporting Vladimir Putin and his war effort. What is your opinion on this issue?
Well, my views on Vladimir Putin and his government in Russia go back to the time he became the Prime Minister and President in Russia. When Tony Blair was entertaining Vladimir Putin at the Opera in London. There were two members of Parliament at a demonstration in support of the Chechen people, Tony Benn and me. And so I’m quite clear about human rights abuses by Putin’s government. And indeed I went on a delegation to Russia during the Yeltsin period when Putin was his deputy to speak up about the war in Chechnya and other issues.
Russia is wrong to be invading Ukraine. No question about that, it’s wrong. The war is getting worse and worse. Tens of thousands dead on both sides. Probably more Ukrainians than Russians, but the issue is how many more are going to die? And so my support is for Lula, the Pope, the Chinese president, and the general secretary of the UN, who are trying to get a peace process going on, because there has to be a cease fire, followed by serious negotiations about what the relationship is going to be like between Russia and Ukraine. If the war goes on, it’s going to get worse, and nuclear weapons are available for both sides. And to me, this prospect is terrifying; therefore there has to be a peace process.
What do you think is the right way to show solidarity with Ukraine then?
To give them the support and the right of asylum, which they have all over Europe and I fully support that. There are many Ukrainians living in my own constituency. I absolutely welcome them, work with them, and they’ve been very well treated and welcomed by the local community. Also it’s to support the Russian peace campaigners who’ve been imprisoned by the Putin government because they’ve spoken up against the war. And to question the pressures for this war from the arms manufacturers, both in Europe and the United States, but also the arms manufacturers in Russia and China and those that are supplying them as well. Through our Peace and Justice project, we’re producing a book on the reality of the arms trade. There’s got to be an alternative. Otherwise, what are we going to be? Spectators in real time, on the loss of tens of thousands more lives.
You mentioned the Pope or Lula, but interestingly, Viktor Orbán is also calling for peace talks, attracting a lot of domestic and international criticism. CPAC Hungary has just taken place, where both Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump have welcomed Orbán on video, so he couldn’t be further away from you politically. Why does Orbán share the same opinion on this then, what do you think?
I certainly can’t speak on behalf of Viktor Orbán. I am very critical of Orbán for his policies towards independent media, his policies towards education, and his policies towards refugees and others. I would think it is probably related to energy supplies that come from Russia into Hungary and it is also probably a desire to make himself an important figure all across Europe. I meet Hungarian politicians in the Council of Europe and other places. Some are fine. Others have appalling attitudes towards minorities and towards asylum seekers, which I find very hard to deal with. I proudly represent a community, where people come from all over the world. 70 different languages are spoken, I’m proud of that. You know what? People can live together, and do.
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