Jeremy Corbyn was spied on by MI5 over fears his IRA links could pose security threat
JEREMY Corbyn was spied on by MI5 over fears his IRA links were a security threat.
Spooks probed the Left-wing Labour leader in the early 1990s while he was campaigning for a united Ireland alongside Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams.
According to the Daily Telegraph. Mr Corbyn was close to a member of the IRA’s Balcombe Street Gang.
The unit waged a 14-month deadly bombing campaign in 1974 and 1975 with targets including pubs in Guildford, Surrey, and Woolwich in South East London.
An intelligence source said: “If there was a file, it meant they had come to notice.
“We opened a temporary file and did a preliminary investigation. It was then decided whether we should open a permanent file on them.”
Special Branch was also monitoring Mr Corbyn at the time, but it is not clear if any intelligence was shared.
Undercover cop Peter Francis said the force kept tabs on Jezza and nine other MPs, detailing political beliefs, personal background and demonstrations they attended.
It is also claimed London Labour Briefing, a magazine with Mr Corbyn on the board, was also monitored. A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: “MI5 kept files on many peace and Labour movement campaigners at the time, including anti-apartheid activists and trade unionists.”
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell was also slammed as a “scumbag” for his support of the IRA.
He apologised when challenged over remarks that “bombs and bullets” helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.
But the Labour left-winger caused further outrage by claiming “no cause is worth an innocent life”.
This led to accusations he was labelling British soldiers and police “legitimate targets” during The Troubles.
Tom Tugendhat, a former British Army officer and Tory candidate for Tonbridge, Edenbridge and Malling said: “To have John McDonnell accusing the British forces and the police of being guilty and therefore legitimate targets is a disgrace.
“Having backed violent terrorists in the IRA for 30 years and undermined those who sought peaceful unity like the SDLP he is no position to decide who is guilty and who is innocent.”
Mr McDonnell was also mocked for claiming today that he played a part in ending The Troubles - despite opposing the Peace Process as late as 1998 - the same year as the Good Friday Agreement was signed.
He once told a Sinn Fein newspaper that a Northern Ireland assembly was “not what people have laid down their lives for over thirty years,” adding: “The settlement must be for a united Ireland.”
But today he boasted: “I did everything I possibly could to secure the peace process in Northern Ireland and at times that was contentious, of course.”
Mr McDonnell added: “If I contributed in any small way I was pleased to do so.”
His support for honouring IRA terrorists came at an event in 2003 to remember Mr Sands’ hunger strike in the 1980s.
Mr McDonnell told the audience: “It’s about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle.
“It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table.
“The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA. Because of the bravery of the IRA and people like Bobby Sands, we now have a peace process.”
A year later Mr McDonnell was handed a special award by Sinn Fein for the “unfailing political and personal support he has given to the republican community in the Six Counties over many years.”
The award was presented by Gerry Kelly, a former IRA terrorist whose bombing of the Old Bailey killed one and injured nearly 200.
Mr McDonnell’s links to the IRA in the 1980s were laid bare by reports that he was so friendly among the community of loyalists in north London that they nicknamed him “The Quartermaster”.
Asked about his support for honouring the likes of Mr Sands, Mr McDonnell said yesterday: “I apologise for the language that I used.”
Army officer turned Tory politician Johnny Mercer snubbed Mr McDonnell’s apology. He said the Shadow Chancellor’s comments about the IRA had been “extremely misguided” and added: “If he tries to appease his conscience by apologising then fine but it is of no interest or anyone else who served.”
A spokesperson for Mr McDonnell said: “This is a contemptible effort to take John’s comments out of context. He was clearly describing the tragic loss of all life.”
James Cleverly, another Tory candidate who served in the Army, said: “The comments John McDonnell made about the British government being dragged to the negotiating table by the bomb and the bullet were deeply offensive to many people who served in Northern Ireland, or lost friends and family through terrorism.
“This partial clarification does nothing to expunge his past comments. I was serving in the Army when soldiers were being murdered driving back from their bases in Germany. Every soldier was acutely aware that they were a target.
“At that time, people like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell were making supportive noises about a movement that was targeting soldiers.”
The DUP’s Ian Paisley said: “Sands was not an innocent life. He was in prison for serious terrorise offences and he took his own life in a selfish act of hunger strike for political purposes.
“The only thing we can take out of his death is that it achieved nothing in fact everything he took his life for the Ira and Sinn Fein ultimately betrayed by accepting the legitimacy of the armed forces in NI, by calling those who attacked the police traitors, and by enacting legislation in a British parliament or assembly in NI.”