British soldiers should give up bombing and drink “cups of tea” with Islamic Sate (IS) terrorists because it worked “when the EDL were going round picketing outside mosques”, a key ally of the Labour party leader has said.
Christine Shawcroft, who sits on the Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and is a senior figure in Jeremy Corbyn’s Momentum supports group, said troops should “get the teabags out” rather than fight IS terrorists.
Mrs. Shawcroft was suspended from Labour’s NEC for defending the corrupt Islamist Mayor Lutfur Rahman, but has risen up the party once again under the leadership of hard left Mr. Corbyn.
She claimed the tactic worked on other presumably dangerous terrorists from English Defence League (EDL) in the past, and added: “Cups of tea might actually be the best kind of system of defence and national security that you could have”.
According to the Telegraph, Ms. Shawcroft went on: “Now I mean, you know, maybe we should try it! Bombing them and attacking them has got us nowhere, why don’t we get the teabags out?
“You know I did read a while ago about when the EDL were going round picketing outside mosques… One particular mosque in the Midlands somewhere just opened the doors and said would you like to come in for a cup of tea?
“And they went in for a cup of tea and now they’re friends with the EDL. Straight away the EDL are now like oh, well actually these people are not the monsters you know that we’re being told all this time, they’re actually human beings that you can sit down and have a cup of tea with.
“So you know I think we should bear in mind that having cups of tea might actually be the best kind of system of defence and national security that you could have, but there we are.”
Ms. Shawcroft has subsequently said the comments were given in a “jocular” manner. She insisted, however, that “behind the joke there is a serious point” about extremism and foreign intervention, according to her worldview.