Conflation between being a potential security risk and being traitor is something of a straw man argument. One is a risk assessment of possibility of an incident where the intent may be malicious or innocent and the other is something where there is a crime that has already been committed with the intention of harming the country. Lets not confuse the two. (Noting here that the security services in the US, seem not to be telling their Commander in Chief the full story about everything for some reason).
And if we talk about prosecutions for having 'the wrong political beliefs' I'm mindful of who calls loudest for this at the moment. The idea of trying to prosecute someone high profile, even if there was evidence, is one I think is fantasy. Can you imagine Nigel Farage on trial? Much less Corbyn. In terms of political stability and national security, do you think trying someone in that situation, even if there was a lot of evidence would be a good move?
I think Cat also has a good point in saying that much of this argument is mute given the nature of the subject.
Corbyn, by habit, avoids making difficult decisions. The thoughtful considered approach? Or a way of avoiding making a really difficult decision where whatever you do, the outcome is going to be a bit shit.
On Russia, Milne has ALWAYS taken a line which is anti Western. It doesn't matter what the evidence. It will never be good enough, because its an ideological position in which evidence is irrelevant.
Corbyn and Milne both have a long standing distrust and poor relationship with the security service. They don't trust it. Even if they had been given evidence, do we really think it would make a difference? Given that history?
We don't view Stalin in such negative terms in the UK because of our history. Such feelings really are not shared by a lot of Eastern Europeans.
The UK's relationship with Stalin during WWII makes for some uncomfortable truths. We have the notion of Hitler as the enemy and we accordingly view the far right in that way. But Stalin, since he was an ally, didn't get the same treatment in British History and Cultural Knowledge.
For example are you familiar with the Katyn Massacre? And how the British kept quiet about it:
According to the Polish diplomat Edward Bernard Raczyński, Raczyński and General Sikorski met privately with Churchill and Alexander Cadogan on 15 April 1943, and told them that the Poles had concrete proof that the Soviets were responsible for the massacre. Raczyński reports that Churchill, "without committing himself, showed by his manner that he had no doubt of it". Churchill said that "The Bolsheviks can be very cruel". However, at the same time, on 24 April 1943, Churchill assured the Soviets: "We shall certainly oppose vigorously any 'investigation' by the International Red Cross or any other body in any territory under German authority. Such investigation would be a fraud and its conclusions reached by terrorism". Unofficial or classified UK documents concluded that Soviet guilt was a "near certainty", but the alliance with the Soviets was deemed to be more important than moral issues; thus the official version supported the Soviets, up to censoring any contradictory accounts. Churchill asked Owen O'Malley to investigate the issue, but in a note to the Foreign Secretary he noted: "All this is merely to ascertain the facts, because we should none of us ever speak a word about it." O'Malley pointed out several inconsistencies and near impossibilities in the Soviet version. Later, Churchill sent a copy of the report to Roosevelt on 13 August 1943. The report deconstructed the Soviet account of the massacre and alluded to the political consequences within a strongly moral framework but recognized there was no viable alternative to the existing policy. No comment by Roosevelt on the O'Malley report has been found. Churchill's own post-war account of the Katyn affair gives little further insight. In his memoirs, he refers to the 1944 Soviet inquiry into the massacre, which found the Germans responsible, and adds, "belief seems an act of faith".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
In the same way, admitting that Putin is responsible for an action on British soil, doesn't fit terribly well with the narrative Milne tries to propagate about the 'evil west' and how Putin is the result of western oppression like the working classes or parts of the middle east. The idea that its a bit more complicated than that, and the west might, indeed, have to take action against an aggressive hostile who isn't a helpless victim doesn't work.
Its deliberate political blindness. In other words, its every bit about using a situation for political gain as May.
Facts don't really matter to Corbyn and Milne. They are pursuing a Trumpesque / Brexit style approach to political communication. Yet here they are saying they suddenly matter. Where else do facts matter to Labour policy right now? Its rather more limited than it should be.
Saying 'we need more evidence' is little more than a way of avoiding making another difficult and potentially controversial decision. Its a way of sticking to their ideology by ignoring the bits of history or current affairs they don't like.
From 2015
www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2015/10/i-wanted-believe-jeremy-corbyn-i-cant-believe-seumas-milne
I wanted to believe in Jeremy Corbyn. But I can't believe in Seumas Milne
Don't get me wrong. May is just as guilty of the same thing. We see it and we call it out. The comparisons with Nazis and presence of the far right make it easier to do. But the key point here is at least see it and identify the problem. Its somewhat easier to challenge for this reason.
With Corbyn, we don't. Stalin's atrocities 'aren't as bad' as Hitler's somehow. We didn't learn about it at school in the same way. The Soviet Union were 'on our side' in WWII and weren't the enemy. The Cold War doesn't really count as we had peace in Europe and that was all good for everyone. We know about the gestapo because of 'Allo 'Allo etc, but we don't really talk about the Stasi in the same way.
Instead, the far left is being sold as rather cool. That makes it much more difficult to resist. Trying to hold to account and debate, is being discriminatory or heartless regardless of the merit of argument or 'the evidence' presented. Political correctness has been weaponised and on this UKIP were right all along (yuk did I really just say that?!). Freedom of speech and the ability to whistleblow is just as hindered as it is under the bureaucratic weight and the dominance of Tory the 'old boys club'.
Yeah we need the centre.
Whatever forces and propaganda bollocks from both sides is going on, being blind to one or the other is dangerous. I will hold anyone who tries to whitewash the far left at arms length and question their motives every bit as much as the far right.
I do think that the criticism of the BBC over the hat is a bit crackers. I do agree it should not have happened, but at the same time it is just a reflection of Corbyn himself. For many, they were already looking at Corbyn with those same suspicions and didn't need Owen Jones to point it out. People would not have such concerns, if Corbyn wasn't hanging out with the people he is and wasn't acting the way he is. Its sort of an Emperor's New Clothes moment rather than merely an outright smear. Newsnight, is a late night show which few people actually watch; ironically Jones drawing attention to it, might make the BBC more hesitant in the way they report, but its also facilitated a Barbara Streisand effect too.