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…
“I don’t approve of any terrorism of any sort” – @jeremycorbyn tells #bbcqt audience https://t.co/SMmlfwLNSg #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/QFMLqMWsc5
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 2, 2017
Asked twice to directly condemn the IRA, Corbyn says “all deaths are wrong”. He just can’t do it…
Asked this morning if he ever called for an IRA ceasefire, Jeremy Corbyn dodged the question and instead answered: “I always wanted there to be a ceasefire.” That is disputed…
In Rosa Prince’s Corbyn biography, the Northern Ireland historian Lord Bew directly addresses Corbyn’s views on a ceasefire. Bew says that as a supporter of the Troops Out movement, Corbyn shared Sinn Fein’s view that Irish unity need not be predicated on either consent or a ceasefire: “The terms on which Corbyn was in dialogue with Adams was on the basis that Adams wins”. Bew says “Corbyn was always out on a limb with the Provos”. That is why Corbyn dodged the question this morning…
There are some other very revealing quotes in the Prince book. A former senior Royal Ulster Constabulary officer says Corbyn was a “useful idiot” of the IRA: “I used to look at him when he would visit Belfast in the 1980s, when he was running around with guys who had done some pretty horrible things, and think: who is this guy? What is he thinking coming here?” The Labour MP David Winnick also says Corbyn was well in with the IRA: “I strongly disagreed with the line he took. I constantly argued that there was no justification for the IRA. I thought he was wrong”. The Catholic Northern Irish writer Eilis O’Hanlon says:
“From Corbyn to McDonnell to Ken Livingstone, they all justify it these days by saying it was OK because it led eventually to the peace process. But that’s disingenuous in the extreme. When they were out defending the IRA, its fellow travellers also didn’t know when, or if, that campaign would end. They still happily supported, or had an ambivalent attitude towards, Republican violence. They knew exactly what they were doing, and how their solidarity was used by the Republican movement to paint its murder campaign as part of some wider struggle for social justice.”
The truth, in the words of Labour MPs and historians, is that Corbyn supported the IRA and didn’t call for a ceasefire. Hence his careful wording this morning…
Jeremy Corbyn is asked how he can be trusted on terrorism considering his stance on the IRA #BattleForNumber10 pic.twitter.com/ymHTEZMXdq
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 29, 2017
.@jeremycorbyn says that whilst he has said he has not met the IRA he has “met former prisoners with his eyes open” #Peston pic.twitter.com/9D6mbJheFD
— Peston on Sunday (@pestononsunday) May 28, 2017
Peston:“Former convicted IRA terrorists? Why is that not talking to the IRA?”
Corbyn:“Indeed I’ve met former prisoners who told me they were not in the IRA, but I have met former prisoners with my eyes open.”
Revealing exchange. These “former prisoners” were convicted bombers who killed civilians…
The IRA chat then turned into some banter about Diane Abbott’s hair:
Diane’s hairstyle is a matter for her says @jeremycorbyn and adds they’ve all learnt a lot from the experience of Northern Ireland #Peston pic.twitter.com/90vh9mNSoo
— Peston on Sunday (@pestononsunday) May 28, 2017
Andrew presses @HackneyAbbott on whether she regrets supporting the IRA #marr pic.twitter.com/6ebiCgsqeZ
— The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) May 28, 2017
Asked four times by Andrew Marr, Diane Abbott refuses to say she regrets her support for the IRA, only saying that she has “moved on”. She says that her afro has changed, as have her views…
Amber Rudd buries her opposite number: “I’ve changed my hairstyle a few times in 34 years too. But I’ve not changed my view on how to keep the public safe”.
“I’ve changed my hairstyle a few times too, but I haven’t changed my views on how to keep the British people safe” says @AmberRuddHR #marr pic.twitter.com/HJlXlIaFXi
— The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) May 28, 2017
