Abbott refuses four times to disown support for IRA and ‘our struggle’
Anger as shadow home secretary says only ‘I don’t have the same hairstyle, I don’t have the same views’
DIANE ABBOTT has refused to renounce her support for the IRA, saying only that views – and her hairstyle – have changed over the years.
The shadow home secretary refused four times to say that she “regrets” supporting the republican group, which murdered around 1,800 civilians and members of the security forces.
Ms Abbott said she had “moved on” from remarks she made in the Eighties, when she declared her support for the IRA and claimed “every defeat of the British state is a victory for all of us”.
Asked about her views on the IRA at the time, she yesterday told the BBC’S Andrew Marr Show: “It was 34 years ago. I had a rather splendid Afro at the time; I don’t have the same hairstyle, I don’t have the same views.
“It was 34 years on. The hairstyle is gone, some of the views are gone.”
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, said: “What I would say to Diane Abbott is I have changed my hairstyle a few times in 34 years as well, but I have not changed my view about how we keep the British public safe.”
Sajid Javid, the Communities Secretary, wrote on Twitter: “Thirty four years ago I had a full head of hair but I still thought – aged 13 – the IRA was a vile terrorist group.”
In an interview with a pro-republican journal in the Eighties, Ms Abbott had said Ireland was “our struggle” and added: “A defeat in Northern Ireland would be a defeat indeed.”
The Labour MP, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest allies, added that she “couldn’t identify as British” and described Northern Ireland as an “enclave of white supremacist ideologies”.
Asked whether Ms Abbott’s hairstyle comments trivialised the IRA, Mr Corbyn told ITV’S Peston On Sunday: “Diane’s hairstyle is a matter for Diane.”
Pressed on the issue, he said: “We learnt, all of us, a lot from the whole experience of Northern Ireland.”
Asked whether Ms Abbott would be his home secretary, Mr Corbyn said: “Diane is our home affairs spokesperson, and I’m looking to appoint our shadow cabinet.”
Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said: “Families across the country today watching Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn account for a lifetime
of sympathy for terrorism will be appalled.”
Ms Abbott was also challenged yesterday over her signing a parliamentary motion in 1989 calling for an end to “conspiratorial groups”. She said: “At that time, I and a lot of people felt MI5 needed reforming. It has since been reformed and of course I would not call for its abolition now.”
Questioned on why she had voted
against banning organisations such as al-qaeda soon before the 9/11 attacks, she said: “What the legislation brought forward was a whole list of organisations, some of which some people would argue were not terrorist organisations but dissident organisations.”
She also insisted she was qualified to be home secretary in part because she had worked as a graduate trainee in the Home Office.