Hugo Rifkind has written a comment piece in The Times (paywall) headlined ‘Left can’t resist being on wrong side of a war’ and sub-headlined ‘Whether it’s Jeremy Corbyn or Zack Polanski, their foreign policy stances terrify voters outside core supporters’. Whilst I don’t accept everything he writes in it, as one of those on the left, I find it hard to disagree with his central thesis. A central thesis he paints negatively, I would paint much more positively, but both of us would agree with the central issue at the heart of the matter.

To sum up the matter, let me share his opening paragraph:

If it hadn’t been for foreign affairs, Jeremy Corbyn would probably have become prime minister. In 2017, remember, he won 40 per cent of the vote, only a couple of points shy of Theresa May. It does not seem a stretch to imagine that he could have made up that tiny gap were it not for his greatest electoral handicap, which is that he was a crank.

This about sums up the matter. The Corbyn project, for a time at least, won widespread support and his domestic programme – with perhaps the spectre of evidently controversial ID politics lurking behind a few policies – incredibly popular. Rifkind is absolutely right, however, to nail what the left would call ‘internationalism’ and everyone else calls being a crank as the fundamental issue.

Turning his thoughts to the new populists on the block, Rifkind says left-wing optimists ‘are soaring on to a fresh new future in Zack Polanski’s Greens. Or so you might think, until a war begins, and they all start talking about it.’ He highlights the current war breaking out in Iran:

“This is an illegal, unprovoked and brutal attack that shows once again that the USA and Israel are rogue states,” Polanski wrote on social media, shortly before his deputy Mothin Ali set off to a Stop the War protest in London, alongside Iranian flags and placards of the late Ayatollah. Last month Polanski also said that he supported the UK leaving Nato, and that the UK should consider expelling American forces from British bases. All of which begins to sound awfully familiar.

He goes on:

On Israel, on Nato, on America, on Britain itself, he more often sounds almost exactly like the Corbynites who came before, or perhaps even the George Gallowayites who came before that. In by-elections, particularly in constituencies such as Gorton & Denton, this will do the Greens no harm.

On a national level, though, recent history surely suggests that it will. For, away from the odd mosque or student union, I’m pretty sure that most people find the idea of leaving Nato fairly terrifying. Most people wouldn’t want us to unilaterally ditch our nukes. Most people, whatever their reservations about Israel, have far greater ones about Iran. Yes, I know they’re currently second in the polls. But with a general election in full swing, with front pages and televised debates, the focus on this stuff will be pitiless.

After offering considerably more, his concluding paragraph – and fundamental point at the heart of his comment piece – reads thusly:

There’s simply no reason for the left of our politics to be contaminated with this guff; no reason at all why sane, if controversial, policies of income redistribution and social justice seem destined to repeatedly end up being the preserve of people who can’t see a war without hoping that the wrong people win it. It does none of us any good. Not even them.

And here, I think he has a real point.

If you took the Corbyn Project and shed it of an overfocus on ID politics and his penchant for supporting an Ayatollah whose government has precipitated waves of the very asylum seekers he very much wants to welcome being here in the first place, you would have a winning electoral formula. I’ll be honest – and it pains me to admit this – George Galloway is remarkably socially conservative in various areas whilst promoting socialist policies. His programme is even closer to that electoral winning formula, except that he is even more of a crank when it comes to foreign policy than Corbyn. It makes perfect sense that Galloway would appeal to Muslims – even more so than others on the left – as he is offering a left-wing domestic programme, coupled to some remarkably socially conservative positions that would resonate with both them and many working class people and then marries this to an almost undying belief that foreign affairs in the Middle East out to be front and centre of every policy platform. If the Greens – the left-wing vehicle currently soaring highest in the popularity stakes – can dial down the foreign affairs and determine to speak a little less about ID politics, they would do incredibly well. But there is little evidence they have any inclination for it.

Which is where many (including me) have a bit of a quandary. For I want a solid, left-wing, dare I even say, socialist, programme to support. But I also happen as a socialist to want our emphasis to be on the politics and good of the United Kingdom rather than politics of the Middle East. Where we do need to focus on these things – and foreign affairs are part of serving the good of the UK – I want someone with the sense to say that they do not support the Iranian theocratic regime. I want someone with the sense to say – as much as they may disagree with the Netanyahu government in Israel – the democratic system he currently sits atop is not in any way equivalent to the undemocratic seizing of power by Hamas killing everyone in Fatah. I want someone with the sense to realise that any government – whether Palestinian or Israeli – that insists no the total annihilation of the other is not a credible partner. I want someone with the sense to see – whatever we may prefer happens with nuclear weapons – unilaterally giving them up is not sensible. I strongly suspect if we could resurrect Michael Foot, apart from this final point, his ‘longest suicide note in history’ would actually be the most electorally popular manifesto going.

What most people want is a left-wing economic programme with a dose of social conservatism. They want a programme that focuses on the things that concern everybody rather than political discussion focused on foreign nations or centring on the concerns of a tiny minority of people. That isn’t to say either thing should not be mentioned or there ought not to be policies about them. It is just to say it is not what ought to dominate. As much as the left shoot themselves in the foot by constantly centring these things, the right do little better by simply presenting themselves as those who wouldn’t centre these things and, in the process, spend most their time talking about how they wouldn’t focus on these things which is to focus on exactly these things.

As Hugo Rifkind pointed out:

Last week, after Manchester’s most famous plumber won her seat, she spoke of the broken link between hard work and a nice life. A good speech, perhaps of the sort Ed Miliband might give, albeit minus the obligatory mention of “this Labour government’s complicity in genocide” shoehorned into the middle. No mention of Nato. No evictions from airbases. No rogue states. Come the next election, I can easily foresee a Green narrative which insists that people like me are only pretending to care about national security because we actually want plumbers to be poor. 

He paints this as a negative being as he isn’t on the left. Mainly because he is aware less foreign policy talk and much more of this domestic policy talk of making work pay and supporting those who can’t is incredibly popular. But as soon as they start wanging on about Gaza or trans people, they will lose the room, or more specifically the nation.

If there is a broader lesson to learn here, I suppose it is that of building as broad a consensus as possible around a strong core and then focusing our attention on what is core. I think this is an issue that is important for the church. We are a bounded group of people who covenant around certain core things. Principally the gospel but, as churches, inevitably some significant but secondary matters too. The important thing is for us to maintain our broad consensus in the things around which we have covenanted together.

It can be very tempting for side issues to overtake. Churches that become overly political, for example, run the risk of alienating half the church over things that have little bearing on the core matters around which the church coalesce. To continually make party political points or hit on issues that, whilst the bible may have things to say about them are matters over which Christians who covenant around exactly what we do frequently disagree, we unnecessarily alienate much of the church.

The same thing can happen theologically too. It’s not that tertiary matters are insignificant or have no bearing on the life of the church. These things – much like UK foreign policy – may have to be spoken about from time to time and do impact on how the church operates. But if these things are consistently front and centre, if they crop up in every sermon or discussion, we are liable to alienate swathes of people unnecessarily. Again, it’s not that we shouldn’t ever mention these things, it’s that we need to be careful the things we do not covenant around do not become matter that we deem essential to our covenanting together. We may differ on what the boundaries are around which we should covenant – just as there are different political parties that group together over divergent core principles so churches will do the same – but when we have set our bounds, we want to be careful that those who sign up to that church covenant are not inadvertently driven away by an insistence on matters that, whilst maybe important, do nothing to undermine what they affirm at core.