The Sun published a article on Monday claiming Corbyn wants to abolish the army according to a speech made at a Hiroshima remembrance parade in August 2012. New leader’s potty plan for world peace
The Daily Mail went for a slightly more accurate How wonderful it’d be if we scrapped the Army, he ranted
The Mirror came to Corbyn’s defence in an article titled Here’s what Jeremy Corbyn REALLY said about getting rid of the Army.
You can view Corbyn’s full speech here:
A measurement of a society’s happiness and prosperity and success is not war, not weapons, not prison, not unemployment.
The measurement is education, health, inspiration, high levels of employment and not going to war around the world to steal the natural resources of others to enrich the already wealthy western society.
Our message today is in memory of those that were so tragically and brutally and horribly killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and all those that suffered the health defects and disfigurement of nuclear testing over the past 60 years.
No more nuclear weapons. No more nuclear wars. No more wars. A world of peace.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every politician around the world instead of taking pride in the size of their Armed Forces did what Costa Rica have done and abolished their Army, and took pride in the fact they don’t have an Army.
And that their country is near the top of the global peace index. Surely that is the way we should be going forward.
It is clear he isn’t advocating the army should be abolished – there is a vast difference between saying “War has caused a lot of suffering, it would be wonderful if we didn’t have an army” and “Thus we should banish the army”.
Interesting to see some of Joe Public’s responses:
As a former soldier I would say that it would be wonderful if all countries COULD scrap their armed forces…………… It would certainly be wonderful if no one felt threatened enough to NEED armed forces…………… Unfortunately that day is an incredibly long way off and in fact will probably NEVER come………….. I rather suspect that is what Corbyn MAY have meant at the time…………
Old Robert, Worcester UK: Daily Mail comment
Katie Hopkins also got a lot of stick for her Twitter response (but let’s face it: Hopkins will get stick no matter what she says!)
Corbyn Media Watch 
One thought on “Corbyn wants to abolish army: FALSE”