Jeremy skewered

He’s left squirming by questions on IRA, Bin Laden and the Falklands war

JEREMY Corbyn came under intense scrutiny last night over his past support of the IRA, his description of the death of Osama Bin Laden as a ‘tragedy’ and his claim that the Falklands war was a ‘Tory plot’.

In a live television showdown, the Labour leader was also torn apart by both members of the public and Jeremy Paxman for his unwillingness to tackle immigration, his failure to back Britain’s nuclear defences and for calling the Hamas terror group ‘friends’.

In the most dramatic scenes of the campaign so far, Mr Corbyn was left stunned as he was grilled on why he had paid tribute to a gang of IRA bombers who were killed while trying to blow up a police station in 1987.

An audience member named Callum challenged Mr Corbyn on why he had ‘openly supported the IRA in the past’ by attending the commemoration for the eight IRA members killed by the SAS in Loughgall.

‘How can we really trust you?’ he asked. Mr Corbyn replied: ‘The commemoration I think you are referring to was a period of silence for everyone who died in Northern Ireland.’

But the audience member interrupted: ‘It was actually to commemorate the people who were killed [in an attack]. The reason they were killed is there were on the way to kill British policemen.’

Mr Corbyn said: ‘The contribution I made was to call for a peace and dialogue process. It is only by dialogue and process that we brought about the peace in Northern Ireland.’

A voter concerned by Mr Corbyn’s attempts to blame the Manchester attack on British military interventions abroad asked him: ‘Why should we soften our policy towards terrorists when they do not negotiate?’

Mr Corbyn, who was appearing on The Battle For Number 10 on Sky News and Channel 4, attempted to backtrack on his comments on Manchester, claiming: ‘It’s not about softening our foreign policy. It is about absolutely condemning what happened in Manchester. The person who committed it did an appalling and abominable and atrocious act.’

Mr Corbyn was also taken to task by a small business owner called Maneet who told him that he had made it ‘impossible’ to vote Labour. ‘Why have you made it impossible for me to vote Labour in this election with your ruthless short sighted policies such as 26 per cent corporation tax, the abolition of zero hours contracts, the £10 an hour minimum age and now you want to put VAT on my children school fees?’

But instead of addressing his concerns, Mr Corbyn fired back criticism. ‘This country is badly divided between the richest and poorest... are you happy that so many of our children are going to school in supersize classes? So many of our children going to school hungry?... You don’t address these problems by ignoring them,’ he said.

Mr Corbyn refused to confirm he was prepared to use Britain’s nuclear missiles to protect the country as he four times failed to answer whether Labour’s commitment to renew Trident is ‘morally right’. Mr Corbyn was also pressed by Mr Paxman over comments he made following the Argentine invasion of the Falklands that ‘young unemployed men’ were being sent to the South Atlantic to die in pursuit of a ‘Tory plot’.

The Labour leader said he did not believe it had been a ‘plot’ but that then prime minister Margaret Thatcher had been exploiting the situation.

Onto why he called the terror group Hamas ‘friends’, Mr Corbyn said: ‘It was inclusive language at a meeting where I was promoting the idea of a two-state solution, promoting the idea of a dialogue... to bring about a peace process, that is important.’

Mr Corbyn defended his comment that the killing of Osama bin Laden by US special forces had been a ‘tragedy’ and insisted he should not have been executed once captured.

‘I think he should have been arrested and he should have been put on trial. And he could have been,’ he said.

‘Look the other way’

Why have you made it so impossible for me to vote Labour? Maneet of Manchester

How can we trust you, Mr Corbyn, on terrorism? Callum from N Ireland