McDonnell, the Marxist who wanted to axe MI5
DISARM POLICE
Was among signatories to a 2015 open letter demanding that MPs ‘abolish the monarchy . . . Disband MI5 and special police squads, [and] disarm the police’. When this made headlines following his appointment as shadow Chancellor, claimed his name had been added in error, despite the fact that the letter’s authors, an organisation called The socialist Network, had published a photo of him posing with a copy of it.
PRAISED IRA
TolD a 1986 sinn Fein meeting in New Cross, south-East london, that ‘the ballot, the bullet and the bomb’ would end British rule in Northern Ireland. a local newspaper reported he then called lewisham councillors who’d boycotted the event ‘gutless wimps’ and joked that ‘kneecapping might help change their minds’. attendees reportedly ‘roared with laughter over the Brighton hotel bomb’, which had killed five people, including a Tory MP, and maimed 31 others just two years earlier. FAMOUSLY praised the IRA in a 2003 speech, saying: ‘It’s about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of [hunger striker] Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table.’ Later issued grovelling apology for the remarks.
COMMUNIST
from reading [Das] Kapital, yes of course, and that’s been recommended not just by me but many others, mainstream economists as well.’ CallED for ‘direct action’ and ‘insurrection to instil fear in the rich elite’ ahead of the 2015 General Election. Writing in the anarchist journal strike! dubbed himself as ‘the last communist in Parliament’ and said: ‘Words are not enough. The elite who still dine at the Ritz, shop at Fortnum & Mason and populate the company boards in the City . . . will only be fearful when our talk moves on to action.’
‘KILL MRS T’
DUBBED Tory MP Esther McVey ‘a stain on humanity’ around the same time, and asked: ‘Why aren’t we lynching the b ***** d?’ Refused to retract the remarks on Robert Peston’s ITV show last year, saying he was expressing ‘honest anger’ over welfare cuts. DECLARED at a Trade Union conference in 2010 that the ‘single act’ he’d most like to do to ‘improve the world’ would be to ‘go back in time and assassinate Thatcher’. Later issued apology for the ‘appalling joke’. sPEaKING to the labour Representation Committee conference in liverpool in March 2012, called the Cameron coalition government ‘an elected dictatorship’. He said: ‘There’s three ways in which we change society. one is through the ballot box, the democratic process and into Parliament. The second is trade union action, industrial action. The third is basically insurrection . . . I think we have a democratic right to use whatever means to bring this government down.’