CORBYN’S INSULT TO VICTIM OF IRA
He gives a speech at university where law lecturer was shot by Republicans ... and fails to mention his death
‘It was a huge insult’
JEREMY Corbyn came under fierce attack yesterday when he failed to mention a prominent IRA murder victim in a speech near the scene of his death.
Edgar Graham, a law lecturer, barrister and rising star of the Northern Ireland Assembly, was shot in the head by two IRA assassins at Queen’s University in Belfast in 1983.
Aged 29, he was seen as a near-certain future leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and one IRA source said he was killed because he would have turned into too effective a political opponent.
Mr Corbyn – on his first visit to Northern Ireland as Labour leader – gave a lecture at Queen’s about Brexit, the Irish border and the need to re-start devolved government in the province.
But he angered Edgar Graham’s sister Anne and families of other IRA victims by failing to condemn violence in the Troubles or even mention Mr Graham.
‘In my books, he’s still an honorary member of Sinn Fein/IRA,’ said Colin Worton, whose brother Kenneth was one of ten Protestant workmen murdered when an IRA gang held up their minibus in Co Armagh in 1973.
The closest Mr Corbyn came to addressing IRA violence was when he spoke of the need to ‘remember the victims’ of atrocities such as ‘Derry, Omagh and Warrington’, mentioning two republican attacks alongside the Bloody Sunday shootings by British soldiers.
He did praise Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and the late Martin McGuinness as ‘men who led the Republican movement from conflict to diplomacy’. Last night Anne Graham said of Mr Corbyn’s failure to condemn her brother’s murder: ‘It’s an insult. It’s upsetting that he did not mention my brother but I’m not surprised. Jeremy Corbyn should be condemning all political violence. I think it’s very difficult for us to move forward as a society where there’s such equivocation.’
She criticised Queen’s University, once a bastion of loyalism which now has more Catholic students than Protestants, for hosting Mr Corbyn given his close links to former IRA figures.
She said: ‘I would be concerned but not surprised that Jeremy Corbyn would be welcome at Queen’s, given they have not yet even created a memorial to my brother despite an £18,000 fund being put together.’
Ulster Unionist Party leader and Assembly member Robin Swann said last night: ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to Northern Ireland provided him with an ideal opportunity to state once and for all that the IRA’s campaign of murder was com- pletely wrong and totally unwarranted.
‘I know that there will be a great deal of hurt and anger that Jeremy Corbyn could come to Queen’s and not even mention Edgar Graham’s name. When democracy is threatened it is incumbent upon all democrats to take a stand. And where democrats are murdered by terrorists like the IRA it is the duty of all democrats to call it what it is – cold blooded murder and an attack on democracy itself.
‘It is shameful that Jeremy Corbyn singularly failed to do that.’
Colin Worton, himself an exUlster Defence Regiment soldier, said: ‘Corbyn should have been man enough to condemn all murders. It was a huge insult that he gave the speech and did not even mention Edgar Graham.’
Meanwhile, Stephen Gault, who was 18 when he saw his father Samuel killed along with 11 other victims by an IRA bomb at Enniskillen in 1987, said: ‘It doesn’t surprise that Jeremy Corbyn didn’t go out of his way to condemn IRA violence because he’d be condemning his friends.
‘Days ago, he condemned the Manchester terror attack. What’s the difference between that and those who committed murder and mayhem during the Troubles? Heaven help the UK if Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister.’
Mark Tipper, whose soldier brother Simon, just 19, was killed by the IRA in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing, said: ‘You should always condemn violence, whether IRA or loyalist. I think his failure to do so shows a lack of respect.’
Mr Corbyn also faced criticism yesterday from Democratic Unionist Party politician Gregory Campbell for refusing to meet IRA victims during his two- day visit. Mr Campbell, asked for the meeting almost two weeks ago but the Labour Party said the request came ‘too late’.
Kenny Donaldson of the campaign group Innocent Victims United said that Mr Corbyn’s refusal showed ‘ someone who does not possess true leadership qualities nor an ability to front up on difficult issues’.
In his lecture, Mr Corbyn urged Ulster politicians and the UK and Irish governments to renew efforts to restore power-sharing.
‘We need all sides to come together and make devolution work again,’ he said.
He also called for the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference – which offers the Irish Republic a role in Ulster issues – to be reconvened.
He restated his commitment to having no hard border with the Republic after Brexit, and a continuing customs union with the EU.
Mr Corbyn, who won a standing ovation from many present, said he was not advocating a referendum on Irish unity. An IPSOS-Mori poll for Queen’s University published on Monday found only 21 per cent of people in the province wanted a united Ireland.