Mr Corbyn had been challenged by Sky News to “condemn unequivocally” the IRA. He said he condemned “all bombing” during the conflict.
Asked whether he would criticise the IRA without equating it to others, he replied: “No. I think what you have to say is all bombing has to be condemned.”
He added: “You condemn the violence of those that laid bombs that killed large numbers of innocent people. And I do.”
“There were loyalist bombs as well, which you haven’t mentioned. I condemn bombing by both the loyalists and the IRA.”
Mr Corbyn was also forced to deny being on the editorial board of the incendiary Labour Briefing at the height of the Troubles.
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The full ill-tempered exchange
In the wake of the IRA bombing of the Tory party in Brighton’s Grand Hotel in 1984, the militant magazine wrote “the British only sit up and take notice when they are bombed into it”.
Mr Corbyn yesterday said he didn’t agree with the view and that he had only ever read the magazine and written for it.
The claim came under fire immediately as a Labour councillor on Twitter posted the image of an ad which asked readers whether they wanted take out supporters’ cards. This would enable them to “go on Jeremy Corbyn’s mailing list – a monthly mailing with details of our activities”.
Ben Wallace, Security Minister, said: “People up and down the country will rightly be outraged that Jeremy Corbyn won’t unequivocally condemn the IRA for the bloodshed, bombs and brutal murders they inflicted on a generation of innocent people.”
He added: “Jeremy Corbyn has spent a lifetime siding with Britain’s enemies.
“But he and his extreme views could be leading our country and representing it abroad – negotiating with 27 countries in just over 2 weeks’ time.
“And it’s the British people who will pay for this for generations.
“We want a Prime Minister, not a leader of a protest movement who has opposed nearly every measure to keep this country safe in the last thirty years.”
Iain Paisley Junior, a candidate for the unionist DUP in Northern Ireland, last night told the Sun: “These are vile utterances by a man who seeks to be Prime Minister.
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“In the name of peace and for the sake of all innocent victims across all of the UK I appeal to people do not let him anywhere near power or he will bring us back to the terrible days of the 80s in Northern Ireland."
The Labour leader’s links with Gerry Adams and the IRA are well known. He invited Gerry Adams and other Sinn Fein members to Parliament weeks after the Brighton bombing.
He was snapped having coffee with Mr Adams and the late Martin McGuinness in the summer of 2015 – shortly before he became party leader.
He also observed a minute’s silence in 1987 for eight IRA members killed by the SAS in an ambush in Gibraltar.
Jeremy Corbyn yesterday insisted he had spoken to loyalists - but only at Stormont.
He said that Britain was wrong to seek a "military solution" in Ireland and added: "It was clearly never going to work, ask anyone in the British Army at that time."
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Corbyn was probed in the early 1990s while campaigning for a united Ireland alongside Sinn Fein’s Gerry AdamsCredit: PA Archive
Former Army officer and Tory candidate Tom Tugenhadt - who last year revealed the IRA once tried to kill his uncle - said: "Like Diane Abbott, Corbyn's contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland was to support a terrorist group dedicated to achieving its aim by killing and maiming Irish and British civilians.
"Those who believed in a united Ireland and actually worked for peace supported the SDLP and many other group who opposed violence.
"His claim to speak for the British Army is laughable."
Yesterday’s interview came just two days after claims Jeremy Corbyn was spied on by MI5 amid fears his IRA links were a security threat.
Spooks probed the leftwing Labour leader in the early 1990s when he was an infamous backbencher campaigning alongside Gerry Adams.
He was alleged to have been closed to a member of the IRA’s Balcombe Street gang – a unit that waged a 14-month deadly bombing campaign in 1974 and 1975.
Peter Dowd, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said it was a “complicated matter” when asked why Mr Corbyn would not given an unequivocal denunciation of the IRA.
“I think this has to be seen within the context of Jeremy Corbyn for many years trying to move the peace process along,” he told the BBC.
“That was an issue, that was a traumatic event in Irish-British relations that went on for 30 years and it is a complicated matter.”
Meanwhile, a Labour spokesman added: "Jeremy campaigned for peace in Northern Ireland.
'He has unequivocally condemned all violence by the IRA - and by those on all sides of the Troubles.
"Lasting security comes from peace through negotiated agreements.
"Jeremy worked tirelessly to bring about that peace in Northern Ireland through dialogue, which culminated in the Good Friday Agreement."
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Jeremy Corbyn taking tea with fiends in Parliament
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Theresa May has put forward a plan for wealthier OAPs to pay more for their careCredit: Reuters
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