Revealed: Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell's close IRA links

The true extent of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell’s links with the IRA is revealed by a Telegraph investigation.

It can be disclosed that for seven years running, while the IRA “armed struggle” was at its height, Mr Corbyn attended and spoke at official republican commemorations to honour dead IRA terrorists, IRA “prisoners of war” and the active “soldiers of the IRA.”

The official programme for the 1988 event, held one week after the IRA murdered three British servicemen in the Netherlands, states that “force of arms is the only method capable of bringing about a free and united Socialist Ireland.” Mr Corbyn used the event to attack the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the precursor of the peace process.

He said it had resulted in no improvement in the lives of the people of Northern Ireland, adding: “It strengthens rather than weakens the border between the six and the 26 counties, and those of us who wish to see a united Ireland oppose the agreement for that reason.”

The editorial board of a hard-Left magazine, of which Mr Corbyn was a member, wrote an article praising the Brighton bombing. In its article on the IRA attack, which almost wiped out Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, the editorial board of London Labour Briefing said the atrocity showed that “the British only sit up and take notice [of Ireland] when they are bombed into it.”

According to an authoritative parliamentary reference work, Mr Corbyn was general secretary of the editorial board. He wrote the front-page story in the same issue of Briefing.

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.”

It mocked Norman, now Lord, Tebbit, the trade secretary who was dug out of the rubble of the Grand Hotel, saying: “Try riding your bike now, Norman.”

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It can also be revealed that in 2004 Mr McDonnell, now Labour’s shadow chancellor, was given a special award by Sinn Fein and another IRA-supporting body 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 to him at a Sinn Fein fundraising dinner by Gerry Kelly, the IRA terrorist who bombed the Old Bailey, killing one and injuring almost 200.

Kelly, now a senior Sinn Fein politician, also led the 1983 breakout of IRA inmates from the Maze prison, during which he shot a prison officer in the head.

As has been widely reported, Mr McDonnell also honoured IRA terrorists, though in his case only after the ceasefire.

In fact, however, Mr McDonnell told the IRA’s official newspaper that he opposed the peace process negotiations to create a power-sharing assembly in what became the Good Friday Agreement.

He said: “An assembly is not what people have laid down their lives for over thirty years…the settlement must be for a united Ireland.”

The disclosures are made after research by the Telegraph in archives in London, Oxford and Belfast.

They come after the Prime Minister, David Cameron, attacked Mr Corbyn last week as “terrorist-sympathising” and “Britain-hating.”

The new revelations were greeted with shock and disgust by victims and opponents of the IRA.

Lord Tebbit, whose wife, Margaret, was permanently crippled by the Brighton bomb, said: "It’s hard to think how Corbyn could sink any lower. It’s the classic definition of the snake’s belly. He betrays his hatred of democracy and his love of violence, which survives to this day.”

Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist MP for North Belfast, said: “Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell speak about honest politics and straight talking, but they should stop trying to pretend and tell lies that they were pro-peace. They were pro-terrorism. They were enemies of the peace process. They had a clear choice between the IRA and peaceful nationalism and they chose the IRA.”

Between 1986 and 1992, Mr Corbyn attended and spoke each year at the annual “Connolly/Sands” commemoration in London to honour dead IRA terrorists and support imprisoned IRA “prisoners of war.”

Programmes for the events have been obtained by the Telegraph.

The programme for the 1987 event, on May 16 of that year, praises the “soldiers of the IRA,” saying: “We are proud of our people and the revolutionaries who are an integral part of that people.”

The programme for the 1988 event, on May 8 of that year, states that “in this, the conclusive phase in the war to rid Ireland of the scourge of British imperialism… force of arms is the only method capable of bringing this about.”

The event took place the day after the funerals of the service personnel killed by the IRA in the Netherlands.

Each programme includes a list of IRA “prisoners of war” who are to be honoured that year, including the Brighton bomber, Patrick Magee, and sectarian murderers.

The lists include their prisons and birthdays, with IRA supporters in the UK encouraged to send them birthday cards in jail.

Mr Corbyn typically spoke alongside senior figures from Sinn Fein, including Gerry Adams at the 1991 event, at which he attacked “British imperialism” and praised Bobby Sands, the IRA terrorist who died on hunger-strike.

The events were organised by the Wolfe Tone Society, which describes itself in the programmes as an “Irish republican support group based in London. Its work consists of helping republican prisoners’ relatives and promoting the policies and publications of Sinn Fein.”

Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell “work closely” with the Wolfe Tone Society, according to its convenor, Dennis Grace, speaking at the 2006 event.

It was at the Wolfe Tone Society’s 2003 commemoration that Mr McDonnell made his now notorious comments calling for Sands and other terrorists to be “honoured,” adding: “It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table.”

In his apology last month for the remarks, Mr McDonnell claimed that he made them to promote the peace process, saying: “I went out and argued for the peace process and I made this speech to a group of republicans because one of the problems we had is that if there was a feeling that they were defeated or humiliated they would not stand down.”

In fact, however, the Telegraph can disclose, Mr McDonnell initially opposed the peace process. In January 1998, during the negotiations for a new power-sharing assembly which three months later became the Good Friday agreement, he told the IRA’s official newspaper, An Phoblacht: “An assembly is not what people have laid down their lives for over thirty years. We want peace, but the settlement must be just and the settlement must be for an agreed and united Ireland.”

He changed his position when the IRA accepted the accord and supported the agreement, though he continued to attack the British government for their “failure of nerve in dealing with unionism.”

Mr Corbyn was also active in the Labour Committee on Ireland, another explicitly pro-republican pressure group, speaking at its Labour conference fringe meetings and signing LCI’s statement of objectives in 1984.

LCI regarded Northern Ireland as a colony and the Loyalist majority as a construct which should be ignored. It campaigned vitriolically against the peaceful, constitutional nationalist party, the SDLP, whose supporters it described as “cannon-fodder…manipulated and directed by a sophisticated management caucus.”

Much of the autumn 1985 edition of the LCI journal, Labour and Ireland, is devoted to a six-page personal attack on John Hume, the then SDLP leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner and key architect of the peace process.

The journal described him as “dogmatic,” “insecure,” and suffering from a “deeply-rooted need for adulation and recognition as an international statesman.”

Diane Abbott, the new shadow international development secretary, was also a strong supporter of LCI.

In a 1984 interview with Labour and Ireland, she attacked the Unionist population of Northern Ireland as an “enclave of white supremacist ideology” comparable to white settlers in Zimbabwe.

Mr Corbyn also strongly opposed a precursor to the peace process, the Anglo-Irish Agreement. He said on two occasions that the agreement “strengthens rather than weakens the border between the six and the 26 counties, and those of us who wish to see a united Ireland oppose the agreement for that reason.”

However, it is the explicit support for the Brighton bombing in London Labour Briefing magazine that may prove the most controversial.

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In its December 1984 leader, the editorial board “disassociated itself” from an article the previous month criticising the bombing, saying the criticism was a “serious political misjudgment.”

The board said it “reaffirmed its support for, and solidarity with, the Irish republican movement” and added that “the British only sit up and take notice [of Ireland] when they are bombed into it.”

Alongside its editorial, the board reprinted a speech by Gerry Adams describing the bombing as a "blow for democracy" and the "inevitable result of the British presence in [Ireland]."

Briefing earlier stated: “We refuse to parrot the ritual condemnation of ‘violence’ because we insist on placing responsibility where it lies…. Let our ‘Iron Lady’ know this: those who live by the sword shall die by it. If she wants violence, then violence she will certainly get.”

According to the authoritative reference work, Parliamentary Profiles, by the late Andrew Roth, Mr Corbyn was general secretary of the editorial board at the time. Other reference material describes him as a member of the board. Mr Corbyn ran Briefing’s mailing list and supporters’ register, according to an advert in the March 1983 issue.

He usually chaired its fringe meetings at Labour conferences and other events and was a keynote speaker at its annual general meeting in July 1985, after the Brighton articles appeared.

In a telephone interview during the recent leadership campaign, Mr Corbyn was repeatedly asked by a BBC interviewer whether he condemned the murders by the IRA.

He five times refused to answer the question directly, saying: “I condemn what was done by the British Army as well as the other sides” before the line went dead.

Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell did not respond to requests for comment.