Special to WorldTribune.com

A socialist politician who has compared the U.S. military to Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and seeks closer ties with Vladimir Putin is topping the polls in the race to lead Britain’s Labor Party.

Jeremy Corbyn put his name forward after the resignation of Ed Milliband and immediately took the lead, with 53 percent in the most recent YouGov poll for the Times of London. The closest competitor had 21 percent.

The Labor Party under Milliband suffered a crushing defeat to Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party in the May general election.

Experts who had predicted the Labor Party would turn to the center, as it did with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, now say the prospect of Corbyn taking the lead could have serious repercussions for the “special relationship” between Britain the United States.

“I think Americans should have the same concern as British audiences,” Dan Hodges, a former Labor Party adviser, told FoxNews.com. “Jeremy Corbyn, if he does win, will become the most hard-left leader of a major political party in post-war British political history. Ideologically, he is someone who leans more toward Moscow than Washington.”

Corbyn told Russian state television recently that he would rethink national security policy if elected prime minister and blasted the U.S. role in the 2008 financial crisis.

“I don’t blame the Labor government of Blair and Brown for that because it wasn’t their fault that these banks were involved in frankly dodgy American investments,” Corbyn told state-funded Russia Today.

Voting ends Sept. 10, with results expected Sept. 12. If Corbyn wins, he’d be leader of the opposition party in Parliament. Should Labor win a parliamentary majority in the next election, scheduled for 2020, he could immediately become prime minister.

Coffey doubts Corbyn could become prime minister, but says even becoming leader of the opposition would have an impact.

“He would be so overtly anti-American that whoever steps into the White House, Republican or Democrat, would have to support the Conservative Party,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iran has refuted the remarks made by visiting UK Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond who said Teheran has shifted its policy on the annihilation of Israel.

“Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan,” Iranian Parliament Speaker’s Adviser for International Affairs Hossein Sheikholeslam said, according to Iran’s Fars news agency.

After opening the British Embassy in Teheran, Hammand said the Iranian government had displayed a more nuanced approach than its predecessor to a long-running conflict with Israel.

“What we’re looking for is behavior from Iran, not only towards Israel but towards other players in the region, that slowly rebuilds their sense that Iran is not a threat to them,” Hammond said.

Sheikholeslam also dismissed a statement Hammond made in which he said that past hostilities between Iran and the UK should be forgotten, Fars reported.

“Teheran will never forget the past and Britain’s colonialist moves,” Sheikholeslam said.

The British embassy was opened earlier this week, nearly four years after it was closed after being stormed by protesters.

  David Cameron, Ed Milliband, Jeremy Corbyn, U.S.-UK ‘special relationship’ on the rocks? Socialist who compared U.S. to ISIL seen as Labor Party leader, WorldTribune.com