MI5 investigated Corbyn’s communist aides

Rimington confirms that Labour leader’s coterie of hard-left supporters were targeted in the Eighties

ADVISERS to Jeremy Corbyn were among communists investigated by MI5 for wanting to “destroy” democracy in the UK, the former head of the Security Service has claimed. Dame Stella Rimington said that members of communist and Trotskyist organisations in the Eighties are now “grown up and advising our would-be prime minister on how to prepare himself for power”.

She described their change in status as “quite an ironic turn of events”.

Dame Stella, 82, who worked for MI5 from 1969 until 1996, began investigating “subversion” in the early Eighties, and handled files on members of the Communist Party of Great Britain and “various Trotskyist organisations”.

She claimed some of them were now members of Momentum, the Left-wing organisation that helped rally support for Mr Corbyn’s leadership bid. Dame Stella told the Cheltenham Literature Festival: “I now see in Momentum some of the people we were looking at in the Trotskyist organisation of the Eighties, now grown up and advising our would-be prime minister Mr Corbyn on how to prepare himself for power. Looking at it from the outside now, that’s quite an ironic turn of events.” She diplomatically said she could not remember any names, but added: “Certainly their names are familiar – shall we say that much?”

Dame Stella said her work at the time involved compiling lists of members of “so-called subversive organisations” which would be consulted as part of the vetting process if anyone applied for a job that would give them access to classified information.

She said: “Our job was to find out exactly who the members of the Communist Party of Great Britain were and various subversive organisations identified as wishing to destroy the democratic system of this country.”

Asked whether there was a genuine threat from such groups, Dame Stella said: “If a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain ... had got access to secret information then there might have been a problem because they might ... well have passed things on.”

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: “It is well documented that a wide range of trade union and political activists, including future senior government ministers, were monitored in the 1980s by the security services. It would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act and of her obligations as a former senior MI5 officer if Dame Stella Rimington divulged privileged information.”

Momentum responded: “Nameless allegations harm our political debate... we’d recommend Stella Rimington refrain from making them in future.”