Corbyn must ‘get serious’ on Syria stance - Alastair Campbell

British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is refusing to back British air strikes in Syria, does not come across as “very serious or professional or realistic”, Tony Blair’s former communications chief Alastair Campbell has said.

“When it comes to something as serious as whether the British government does or does not take military action against Isis targets in Syria, the least you expect from the Opposition is some unity of purpose.

“You do get a sense of something not being held together. He’s got to get serious,” Mr Campbell told The Irish Times during a visit to Dublin, where he received an award from a Trinity College society.

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s charges yesterday that Blair’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 had been responsible for the 7/7 bombings in 2005 was a “ridiculous and simplistic view”, Campbell declared.

“Could you and I go out and find people who have been radicalised because of the George Bush-Tony Blair decision? Of course we could. But is that the reason why all this is happening now?

Saddam Hussein

“No. 9/11 happened before the war in Afghanistan. It happened before the war in Iraq,” he went on. “The decision to topple Saddam Hussein I think was taken for the right reasons and amid genuine fears about the threat that he posed.”

However, he once again accepted that post-invasion mistakes were made: “The aftermath was not well handled. No doubt about that at all,” he told The Irish Times.

Meanwhile, Campbell said he remained optimistic about Northern Ireland’s future: “I got 100 questions [at a Belfast dinner on Thursday]. One, just one, was about what you could call the peace process. That’s pretty extraordinary.”

Urging unionists to look at “the big picture” of an improved society, not just the continuing existence of the IRA Army Council, Mr Campbell said Mr Blair had seen Sinn Féin and the IRA as “two sides of the same coin”.

“Tony Blair made a judgment that the leadership we were dealing with had decided that there was a different and better way, a more peaceful way to try to, if you like, pursue their goals.

‘Big picture’

“ And I think that remains the case. I think everybody, not just unionists, should step back to see a big picture that is much better than what they had before.”

In a recent book on leadership, Winners, Campbell counted Bertie Ahern among “a large number of exceptional people in the right place at the right time” who helped bring about the Belfast Agreement.

He said it is “pretty extraordinary” that Sinn Féin’s leadership is the only group still to be at the helm of their party: “It shows resilience. It shows an absolute commitment, I guess. And it shows they’re pretty skilled at what they do.”