John McDonnell has a plaque on the wall of his study commemorating IRA killers, reveals Jim Pickard in his interview with the Shadow Chancellor today:

McDonnell was forced to apologise for saying in 2003 that the IRA should be honoured. He had declared: “It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table.” In 2015 he told the BBC: “If I gave offence — and I clearly have — from the bottom of my heart I apologise. I apologise.” Yet in his study in Hayes, among old copies of Hansard and files labelled “human rights” and “groceries adjudicator bill”, there is still a plaque dedicated to “H-Block Martyrs 1981”, a reference to the 10 IRA and INLA prisoners who died during the hunger strikes, including Sands. McDonnell denies that he resisted the peace process: “I’ve always honestly and openly said I believe in a united Ireland, but the point was to try and get to a united Ireland without the violence.”

The plaque honours IRA murderer Francis Hughes, who killed two RUC officers in 1977 and a Para the following year. McDonnell was given the plaque by Gerry Kelly. An IRA terrorist who received two life sentences for an attack on the Old Bailey which killed one person and injured 100…