Channel 4’s ‘irresponsible’ IRA interview

CHANNEL 4 News has been branded ‘recklessly irresponsible’ for giving the New IRA a platform to make terror threats over Brexit.

The broadcaster has been accused of giving ‘self-confessed murderers’ the ‘oxygen of publicity’ after it interviewed a masked spokesman for the group.

Voiced by an actor, he told Wednesday’s programme any Brexit border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic ‘would be a legitimate target for attack and armed actions against those infrastructures and against the people who are manning them’.

Appearing on the programme Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen told presenter Cathy Newman: ‘I think the fact that you put those terror groups on your programme... is deeply irresponsible. They are a fringe group that barely represent themselves on the island of Ireland.’ Speaking to the Daily Mail yesterday he added: ‘These terrorists don’t need an excuse to cause mayhem and murder, that’s what they do. Channel 4 shouldn’t give them either a platform or an excuse to latch on to.’

A Channel 4 News spokesman said that the interview had been of ‘overwhelming public interest at a vital time’.