Far Left Activists Call for Britain to Pay ‘Reparations’ to the Taliban to ‘Rebuild Afghanistan’

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 02: Stop the War Coalition supporters hold up a banner outside
Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

The far-left Stop the War Coalition has called for the British taxpayer to pay “reparations” to the Taliban to “rebuild Afghanistan”.

In a statement released on their website, the Stop the War Coalition, which was initially established as a front group for the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the wake of the September 11th terror attacks, said that the war in Afghanistan was always “doomed to fail” and that the war on terror should be declared over.

The far-left group went on to call on the British government to take a lead role “in offering a refugee programme and reparations to rebuild Afghanistan”.

Stop the War said that reparations would “go a great deal further in advancing the rights of the Afghan people, women in particular, then continued military or economic intervention in the fate of the [sic] Afghanistan.”

“We urge politicians of all parties to learn the lessons of the failed wars of intervention and turn to international cooperation as the means of resolving disputes and tackling problems of poverty and underdevelopment,” the statement continued.

During the 20-year war, the UK spent some £22 billion, with much of the funding going into providing education for women and girls, as well as training and equipping the now-defunct Afghan military.

The disgraced former leader of the left-wing Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, previously served as the chairman of the socialist group and still serves as the deputy president, according to the website for Stop the War.

Mr Corbyn was suspended from the Labour Party last year after he openly rejected findings that he failed to confront antisemitism within the party during his tenure as leader.

The far-left MP also has long been criticised for cosying up to terrorist elements in the Middle East, including a 2012 appearance on an Iranian television programme, Remember Palestine, in which he referred to over 1,000 Hamas terrorists as “brothers”.

While Mr Corbyn has not specifically called for reparations, he said on Monday that he will be advocating that the UK provide “humanitarian support, a response to rising extreme poverty, respect for human and civil rights especially those of women and girls, and real self-determination for Afghanistan”.

Following the disastrous withdrawal of American and British forces and the subsequent Taliban takeover of the country, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has decided to recall parliament from their summer holiday to debate the situation.

As MPs gather on Wednesday, Stop the War Coalition has vowed to protest in Parliament Square, demanding that the government “recognise that the war in Afghanistan was a catastrophe that must not be repeated”.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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