Corbyn has placed himself on the wrong side of the Russia debate

The leader of the Labour party chose to cast doubt on the credibility of the British security services and to ask for 'proof' that the Russian authorities were indeed responsible (by commission or omission) for what happened

Mr Corbyn chose to cast doubt on the credibility of the British security services (BBC)

During the last general election the Conservatives and their attack-dog allies in the media made much of Jeremy Corbyn’s past sympathy for the Soviet Union and unilateral British nuclear disarmament. More recently, there was a round of hyped-up speculation about Mr Corbyn's meetings with a Czech agent during the 1980s, in which, taking note of Mr Corbyn’s taste for libel actions, he was falsely accused of “selling secrets” to the communists (secrets that, of course, he never knew and for funds that were imaginary).

None of that made much difference to Mr Corbyn’s appeal because the controversies that were revived were far away and long ago, involving states which no longer exist, and much of Mr Corbyn's core support wasn’t even born when the events took place.

Not so today. Today the threat is more immediate, and surfaces in places such as Salisbury. The Russians’ ability and willingness to murder people on British soil has been demonstrated decisively. No one could rule out massive collateral casualties in some botched Kremlin-sanctioned assassination job. Such state-sponsored acts or terror – involving albeit tiny quantities of what is clearly a chemical weapon of mass destruction – are contrary to everything the Labour Party stands for. When the Prime Minister at last took some action against the Russians, by expelling 23 diplomats, Mr Corbyn’s correct role was to support that, and to ask the sorts of questions a responsible Leader of the Opposition should. Mr Corbyn in the Commons could have chosen to ask Ms May why she had not protected Mr Skripal or his daughter, and indeed many other Russian political refugees sheltering in the UK. Where was the intelligence on potential assassinations? He could have demanded to know why the Government had not acted sooner, and what more they were proposing to do.

Instead, Mr Corbyn chose to cast doubt on the credibility of the British security services, and to ask for “proof” that the Russian authorities were indeed responsible (by commission or omission) for what happened. The burden of proof Mr Corbyn has asked for is simply unrealistic in such circumstances, and not in any event necessary for Britain to expel Russian spies and take action against Mr Putin. He looks and sounds naive when he calls for samples to be sent to the perpetrators. He looks and sounds weak when he asks the Government to "reduce conflict and tensions, rather than increasing them”.

For what is becoming apparent is that this is not only a hostile act against Britain, but against the West generally, and requires the kind of united international response that the Government has tried to assemble – including, valuably, the support of our close allies in the European Union. There’s a case that Nato’s Article 5 – that an attack on one is an attack on all – should be invoked. Such unity has not been helped by Mr Corbyn's curious sentimentality for the Russians. It is as if no one has told him that Putin’s Russia is far away from the sort of socialist state the USSR pretended to be. Maybe it is simply that Mr Corbyn is a pacifist, and has a touching belief that Mr Putin can be reasoned with, like Hamas, the IRA or the old Soviet bloc. That is not the case.

The point about the chemical weapon Novichok is not that it is difficult to trace, but precisely that it is easy to do so. It is very obviously the product of Russian state laboratories, and has been administered specifically to signal to other Russian dissidents, exiles, political refugees or “traitors” globally that the Russian authorities will not hesitate to track them down and make them pay the ultimate price for their supposed treachery. It is an unmistakable calling card, and may as well bear the signature of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin himself.

Russia’s, or rather Mr Putin's, enemies at home and abroad are being left in no doubt about his ruthlessness, and are being terrorised. In the Ukraine, in Syria and in assorted attacks on elections, computer systems and individuals in the West, Mr Putin brooks no opposition, and uses all methods at his disposal, including ones outlawed under international conventions and the rule of law. When it suits him, he can deny responsibility – also knowing no one believes him. Mr Putin has invented a new form of such actions – “implausible deniability”.

Mr Putin is steering Russia into becoming a rogue state, a larger and much more dangerous version of North Korea. That journey is not yet complete, and there may be little that can be done to stop it. Even so the UK, far outgunned by Russia, could do more to track and reveal the sources of the wealth of Mr Putin and his allies in London, by enforcing the law on unexplained wealth, publishing a public register of property ownership, and passing the so-called Magnitsky amendment to freeze the assets of hostile actors.

The one thing that recent history has proved – and echoing uncomfortably from the 1930s – is that appeasement does not work. When Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande travelled to Moscow to personally plead with Mr Putin over the Ukraine crisis they returned empty handed, humiliated. Now Mr Corbyn has found himself on the wrong side of this debate, and this time it will cost him.