Shadow Chancellor backed call to scrap MI5 and gun cops
LABOUR’S Shadow Chancellor was branded ‘the enemy within’ by one of his own MPs yesterday after backing demands to disarm anti-terror police and disband MI5. John McDonnell was plunged into a furious row after it emerged that he had signed a list of demands drawn up by the far-Left Socialist Network group in the run-up to this year’s election.
Mr McDonnell, an IRA sympathiser who once ‘joked’ that he wanted to assassinate Margaret Thatcher, yesterday insisted he no longer supported the disbandment of MI5.
A spokesman claimed his name was added to the manifesto without his knowledge.
But the claim was blown apart after a photograph emerged of a smiling Mr McDonnell at a Socialist Network event, holding a copy of the group’s manifesto headlined ‘Our Demands’.
The row erupted just days after Jeremy Corbyn sparked outrage among Labour MPs by questioning whether police should deploy a shoot-to-kill policy against terrorists engaged in a Paris-style massacre. It came after details emerged of a manifesto published by the Socialist Network in April this year, and signed by Mr McDonnell.
The group’s 12-point list of demands included: ‘Disband MI5 and special police squads, and disarm the police.’
Other demands included the abolition of the monarchy, scrapping academy and grammar schools, cutting the pension age to 60 and a call to ‘slash military spending’. But attention yesterday focused on Mr McDonnell’s apparent support for a call to disband MI5 and disarm the police at a time when they are helping to prevent a terror attack on Britain.
The manifesto was also signed by Mr Corbyn’s controversial policy chief Andrew Fisher, who was suspended from the Labour Party earlier this month over claims that he backed a rival party at the election. Labour’s international development spokesman Diane Abbott suggested there could have been a ‘misunderstanding’ and Mr McDonnell may not have been aware of the exact demands.
But Labour MP Gavin Shuker said: ‘To call for MI5 to be scrapped when we face this jihadi threat is beyond a joke. John McDonnell is behaving like the enemy within.’
Sir Alan Duncan, a Tory member of Parliament’s intelligence and security committee, said: ‘Nothing could more disqualify someone from office than them holding these views.
‘No doubt he will now choose to distance himself from this, but what is the point of a Shadow Chancellor who has to retract every opinion he has ever held?’
Mr McDonnell’s spokesman insisted he had signed up to the campaign’s general princi-
‘This is beyond a joke’
ples rather than the specific demands. They claimed: ‘John posed in good faith with a copy of what he thought were the principles he signed up to and not the demands which he had never seen before yesterday. To reiterate John does not share these views.’
however records of a Socialist Network meeting in January show Mr McDonnell spoke at the event at which the demands were drawn up.
And a photograph has emerged that clearly shows Mr McDonnell holding a copy of the demands he is claiming he has never seen.
Last night a Labour spokesman said Mr Corbyn still has ‘full confidence’ in his Shadow Chancellor.
Shoot-to-kill is the order of the day in the wake of the Paris massacre. the Prime Minister insists that British police must be free to ‘take out a terrorist to save lives’. even Jeremy Corbyn has backtracked, up to a point, on his opposition to the use of lethal force — provided ‘it is strictly necessary’. Corbyn had to climb down after being heckled at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. earlier he had told the BBC that shoot-to-kill was ‘dangerous and counter-productive’.
the policy of allowing the police to use deadly force when confronted with a terrorist threat commands widespread political and public support. But the Prime Minister’s statement is yet another example of the Government’s schizophrenic approach to tackling violent crime and Islamist extremism.
In theory, firearms officers have always had the discretion to discharge their weapons if they think their lives, or the lives of others, are in imminent danger. In practice, however, they run the risk of being scapegoated when they pull the trigger.
Just ask Anthony Long, a veteran police marksman, who found himself in the dock at the old Bailey charged with murder after shooting Azelle rodney, a suspected armed robber, in north West London.
Mr Long, who has now retired, was part of a team sent to intercept a gang believed to on a raid. Intelligence reports suggested that the men were armed, at least one with a machine gun.
After stopping the car, Mr Long genuinely believed rodney was reaching for a weapon and shot him six times. A search of the vehicle found three guns, none of them automatic and only one loaded.
But how was Mr Long supposed to know that? he had a split-second decision to make. As he told the court: ‘I was absolutely convinced that he’d ducked down, picked up a firearm, that he posed an imminent threat to my colleagues.’
the shooting caused an outcry. Any death of a young black man at the hands of the police is politically toxic. following a concerted campaign by rodney’s family, ‘community leaders’ and an inquiry which ruled he had been unlawfully killed, Anthony Long was thrown to the wolves.
Police chiefs and prosecutors decided that this decorated officer, who went to work daily prepared to put his life on the line to protect the rest of us, should be charged with murder.
After weighing the evidence, the jury found him not guilty. Just as well. Police officers had said they would refuse to carry guns if he was convicted. And where would that have left us now, as the country is on high alert, braced for Paris-style attacks on British streets?
fortunately, juries can often be relied upon to do the right thing. In the case of Mark Duggan, a two-bob ‘gangsta’ shot by police in an operation remarkably similar to the Azelle rodney incident, an inquest jury ruled that he had been lawfully killed. that decision is now going to the Court of Appeal, so the officers involved still aren’t off the hook.
the marksmen who shot the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, after mistaking him for a terrorist in the wake of the London transport bombings, had to suffer years of anguish even though they weren’t charged.
I’ve been on a police firearms course and met several serving armed-response officers. And I can assure you that they’re the very opposite of gung-ho, triggerhappy cowboys.
What’s remarkable is how few times they actually have to discharge their weapons. But when they do, they have only milliseconds to make up their minds.
even though Call Me Dave says they must be free to ‘take out a terrorist’, what if it all goes wrong? Will they find themselves up on a murder charge at the Bailey, like Anthony Long?
You can certainly imagine what might happen if a terror suspect is shot dead in contentious circumstances. the BBC, the Guardian, the yuman rites industry, would all swing into action demanding retribution against the officers involved.
In Paris, police fired more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition during the siege of Saint Denis. If that was replicated in London, who knows who might get caught in the crossfire? Could the anti-terrorist marksmen rely on the unswerving support of the politicians and the prosecutors, not to mention their careerist senior officers?
I wouldn’t put money on it. Would you want to charge through the door of a terrorist safe house knowing that if things go pear-shaped you could be facing criminal charges?
We can’t even fight a proper war without every cough and spit being dictated by lawyers, laying down rules of engagement and selecting legitimate targets. But how can you follow conventional rules of engagement when faced with an enemy which deliberately targets civilians?
Izal aren’t signatories to the Geneva Convention. nor are Al Qaeda or the taliban, who torture and mutilate their prisoners.
Yet when royal Marine Sergeant Alexander Blackman shot and killed an already fatally wounded taliban fighter in Afghanistan, he was hauled before a court martial and sentenced to eight years in jail.
A campaign to free him is being led by author frederick forsyth and backed by the Mail. I’m convinced that if Sergeant Blackman had appeared before a civilian jury, he’d have been found not guilty.
this scandalous case, too, illustrates the Government’s schizophrenia and double-standards in the so-called war on terror.
It would appear that it’s perfectly acceptable to shoot-to-kill on the streets of Britain, but not on the battlefield in Afghanistan.
the military will also be deployed on our streets in the event of a Paris-style attack. If there was any justice, Sergeant Blackman would be released immediately, allowed to rejoin his regiment and given back his weapon so he can defend this country — which is what he signed up for in the first place.
Shoot-to-kill is all fine and dandy in principle and makes the Prime Minister sound tough and resolute.
But it is utterly meaningless if officers who put their lives on the line still risk being hung out to dry for the sake of political expediency.