LABOUR’S RISING STAR TURNS ON CORBYN
Party star Khan damns leader over anti-Semitism He calls Shadow Chancellor’s IRA views ‘perverse’
NEW Labour Party leaders Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell were last night sensationally accused of risking inciting terrorist and anti-Semitic attacks in London.
The claim was made by the Labour candidate for London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, in a devastating assault on Corbyn and the man he has made Shadow Chancellor.
Khan, who is Muslim, suggested that Corbyn’s refusal to sing the National Anthem showed he was unfit to be Prime Minister.
And he denounced the Labour leadership duo’s links to terror groups. He said McDonnell’s claim that IRA killers should be ‘honoured’ could encourage terrorism in London, and Corbyn’s support for Arab extremist groups could inspire anti-Semitic attacks.
Khan’s comments were echoed by fellow Labour MP Chuka Umunna, whose Streatham constituency includes Brixton, hit by riots in the 1980s. Umunna said Corbyn’s leadership could leave Labour out of power for years and trigger a repeat of the ‘Tory injustice’ of the Thatcher era which had ‘boiled over’ in the Brixton riots. Asked if he meant it could spark violent unrest, Umunna said: ‘I wouldn’t dismiss it.’
Khan said anyone aspiring to be Prime Minister should sing the Anthem. He said he sang it regularly and spoke with pride of kissing the
‘His 60p tax plan is ridiculous’
Queen’s hand when he was made a Privy Counsellor in a ceremony the Labour leader is threatening to boycott. His comments are all the more pointed given his Pakistani roots.
Khan said: ‘My family has always been proud of being British. My cousins in Pakistan say, “You are one of the Queen’s advisers”.’
Corbyn was ‘very unwise and disrespectful’ to refuse to sing the Anthem at last week’s Battle of Britain memorial service.
Asked if he could stomach McDonnell’s comment about ‘honouring’ IRA terrorists, Khan said: ‘No. You cannot condone terrorism. You are giving credibility to a view that is perverse and that is wrong.’
It was ‘particularly dangerous’ in London, which had been the target of IRA and militant Islamist outrages. Khan also backed claims that Corbyn’s links with Palestinian terror groups could fuel antiSemitism in the UK.
Asked to comment on Corbyn’s Hamas and Hezbollah connections, he said Labour had to ditch its ‘antiJewish’ image, which was not acceptable’ in Britain.
Khan said there was a direct link between Middle East tension and anti-Semitic attacks in London, saying synagogues and Jewish schools in London needed 24-hour guards as a result.
Khan also disowned Corbyn’s and McDonnell’s policies including a ‘ridiculous’ 60p top tax rate, scrapping nuclear weapons, leaving Nato and nationalising banks, and said he would not take orders from Corbyn if he became mayor. ‘I will be my own man,’ he vowed.