CORBYN DEPUTY CALLED FOR ‘INSURRECTION’

As unions threaten wave of strikes, the video that shows ...

JOHN McDonnell’s campaign to seize power through ‘insurrection’ is exposed by the Daily Mail today.

Labour’s Shadow Chancellor has spent the past three months at rallies and on picket lines inciting union members to ‘drive the Tories from office’.

Industrial action must however relate to work disputes and coordinating strikes solely to overthrow a government is almost certainly illegal.

Mr McDonnell, who is Jeremy Corbyn’s closest political ally, appears to have been plotting antidemocratic action for as long as four years.

Video footage obtained by the Mail from 2013 shows him using the word insurrection – defined in the Oxford Dictionary as ‘a violent uprising’.

‘Parliamentary democracy doesn’t work for us, elections aren’t working for us,’ he told hard-Left

comrades. ‘We used to call it insurrection. Now we’re polite and say it’s direct action. Let’s get back to calling it what it is: It’s insurrection. We want to bring this Government down by whatever mechanism we have.

‘If that means urging unions to coordinate their action, let’s do it. If that means calling every community organisation to demonstrate on the same day to bring this country to a standstill, let’s start organising for it now.’

Although he has been more careful with his words since becoming Mr Corbyn’s deputy, Mr McDonnell has been calling for mass action on the streets. He told concert-goers at Glastonbury that democracy was not working.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘ He and his crew are dangerous anti-democratic Marxists trying to achieve through the mob what they failed to achieve democratically through the ballot box.’ The revelations came as:

Unions threatened yesterday to unleash co- ordinated strikes unless ministers agree to inflation-busting 5 per cent pay rises, which would cost £9billion a year;

TUC chief Frances O’Grady insisted the public sector pay cap must be lifted for all workers – not just prison officers and policemen, who are set to get a rise this week;

Delegates at the TUC congress voted unanimously in favour of collective action, including industrial action ‘when required’.

On Sunday militant unions backed by Mr McDonnell threatened to use strikes to force Theresa May out of Downing Street.

At the rally outside the Trades Union Congress, they pledged to coordinate strikes with millions of workers downing tools and bringing the country to a standstill.

Mr McDonnell also spoke at the event, appearing to back coordinated strikes, adding: ‘If you decide that, yes, you will take that action democratically together, you will have our support.’

His incendiary comments are the culmination of a summer tour rousing protesters at picket lines, street rallies and union conferences.

On June 13, less than a week after the general election, he travelled to the Bakers Union conference in Merseyside and announced his plan for one million protesters to march in London in an attempt to oust Theresa May.

After attending Glastonbury Festival – where he declared that those who died in the Grenfell Tower blaze were ‘murdered by political decisions’ – he spoke outside Parliament on July 1 to crowds at the anti-Tory rally he had earlier supported.

Mr McDonnell also visited strikes involving staff from McDonald’s, British Airways, the NHS and the Ritzy cinema in south London.

Marching with health workers in east London in July, he said: ‘We have to work for the next election. Demoralise the Tories as much as we can whether it’s in Parliament but also on activities outside.’

Footage from the talk at Goldsmiths, University of London, in December 2013 shows Mr McDonnell saying unions must use ‘ insurrection’, while coordinating strikes to ‘bring this country to a standstill’ and ‘defeat these bastards’.

He added: ‘We’re into class war. And what’s the lesson that we’ve learned over the last two centuries?

‘How do we win? We win through coming together in solidarity. We’re the many, they’re the few.’

The footage also shows Mr McDonnell discussing the potential for a march on Parliament – of the kind organised in July.

Tory MP Philip Hollobone said last night: ‘Mr McDonnell’s comments are not appropriate for a Shadow Chancellor. He should be engaging in the democratic process, not encouraging people to overthrow the government outside parliament.’

A spokesman for Mr McDonnell said: ‘This summer John has been meeting with workers across the country who are struggling to get by under a Tory government that has kept public sector pay down, and is leaving working families £1,400 a year worse off on average.’