Jeremy Corbyn refuses to comment on alleged links with IRA
Jeremy Corbyn has refused to comment on further allegations about his links with the IRA.
At the height of the “armed struggle” against the British authorities in the 1980s and early 1990s the Labour leader regularly spoke at official republican commemorations for dead terrorists, “prisoners of war” and the active “soldiers of the IRA”, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
The official programme for a 1988 event, held shortly after the IRA killed three British servicemen in the Netherlands, stated that “force of arms is the only method capable of bringing about a free and united Socialist Ireland”.
The newspaper said Mr Corbyn, then a backbench MP, was general secretary of hard-Left magazine London Labour Briefing when it produced an article praising the Brighton bombing.
The editorial piece apparently claimed the atrocity showed that “the British only sit up and take notice when they are bombed into it”.
The same edition of Briefing, for December 1984, carried a reader’s letter praising the “audacity” of the IRA attack and stating: “What do you call four dead Tories? A start.”
Referring to Norman Tebbit, the trade secretary who was dug out of the rubble of the Grand Hotel, the letter reportedly said: “Try riding your bike now, Norman.”
The MP’s wife was permanently disabled in the attack.
Mr Corbyn’s spokesman refused to comment on the material, which the Sunday Telegraph obtained from archives in London, Oxford and Belfast.
“Jeremy has always been and remains opposed to violence,” the spokesman said.
