Sputnik: What do you make of the British government’s handling of the issue overall?
Tara McCormack: I think that this has been an absolutely disgraceful episode in terms of the British political elite and the vast majority of the media. There’s been an absolute leap to blame Russia and we’ve had absolutely preposterous things said by the British government, as in saying to Russia, you have twenty four hours to prove your innocence. Let’s just think about what’s being said, not that they have to prove their guilt, but prove their innocence.
The Russian foreign minister Lavrov was absolutely right when he said send us the samples under the terms of the chemical weapons convention’s treaty. There should be a joint investigation and examples of whatever it is should be sent to the country and this of course hasn’t happened. What’s really astonishing is that nobody is bringing this up in British politics or in the media.
Jeremy Corbyn has been hammered in previous weeks, when he’s just made a straightforward argument due to the process. This used to be something that Britain prided itself on, due process, evidence and proper procedure and this is clearly no longer the case.
I would say that the whole campaign has been absolutely disgraceful and has carried on this demonization of Russia, portraying Russia as a rogue state and the most worrying thing I think for Britain, is that we know our government in the past deliberately manufactured a false case for intervention in the Middle East, and I think the situation is even worse currently, there is no critical commentary at all.
The views and opinions expressed by Tara McCormack are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.