Corbynista MP invited New IRA apologist into the Commons
Just five months after Westminster visit, the terror group murdered Lyra McKee
ONE of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest allies chaired a Commons event in support of a convicted IRA terrorist – just five months before an extremist Republican killed journalist Lyra McKee in the Province.
Outspoken MP Chris Williamson hosted the event, which called for the release from prison of convicted IRA member Tony Taylor and two others jailed for the murder of an Ulster policeman.
The MP was joined by ex-Labour activist Gerry Downing, who earlier this month reacted to the shooting of Ms McKee by publishing a statement from his Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group (IRPSG) that placed the blame for the riot that ended in her death ‘squarely at the feet of the British Crown Forces’.
The controversial meeting was held under the auspices of the Labour Representation Committee, the hard-Left group whose president is Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.
Derby MP Mr Williamson is suspended from Labour after claiming it had ‘given too much ground’ in dealing with the anti-Semitism allegations now engulfing the party.
But as a fully fledged Labour MP in November, he hosted a meeting to call for action over the continued detention of Tony Taylor, originally jailed for IRA offences in 1994 then released under the Good Friday agreement before being jailed again in 2011 for possession of a rifle.
Taylor was arrested again in 2016 on the orders of then Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers, to the fury of family and friends who claimed his detention without charge could not be justified.
Taylor’s wife Lorraine spoke on his behalf at a 2017 event organised by Saoradh, the political wing of the New IRA which has accepted responsibility for Ms McKee’s death. After Ms McKee’s murder, supporters demonstrated in Londonderry outside Saoradh’s office, accusing it of having blood on its hands.
Taylor was freed without charge after the November event, which also called for the release of Brendan McConville and John-Paul Wootton, the so-called ‘Craigavon Two’, who were alleged members of the Continuity IRA and were convicted of killing police officer Stephen Carroll in 2009.
Despite claims at the Commons event of a miscarriage of justice – including allegations that the main witness against McConville and Wootton was unreliable, the two men are still in Maghaberry.
Mr Downing, a former Labour activist and member of the IRPSG, posted pictures on Facebook of himself attending the event.
After the brutal killing of Ms McKee, 29, this month, shot dead while observing a riot in the Creggan area of Londonderry, Downing published a statement from the IRPSG saying the group ‘expresses our full solidarity with the antiimperialist struggles in Ireland’.
It said the blame for the riot ‘lies squarely at the feet of the British Crown Forces, who sought to grab headlines and engineered confrontation with the community’. Down
‘We express our solidarity with the anti-imperialist struggles’
ing, a veteran hard-Left activist, was expelled from the Labour Party in March 2016 after David Cameron highlighted a blog in which he argued the 9/11 attackers should never be ‘condemned’.
Downing then joined a group of former party members called Labour Against the Witch-Hunt.
He was expell ed f r om t hat group i n January after being accused of anti-Semitism.
The New IRA largely consists of new recruits, plus some former members of the Real IRA, Continuity IRA and Provisional IRA.
Saoradh, which has been described as an ‘unregistered political party’, acts as a mouthpiece for the New IRA, which has also adopted the cause of the Craigavon Two.
Mr Williamson defended his decision to host the Commons meeting yesterday, saying t hat i t was ‘ called to discuss the concerns about the safety of convictions, not political support’.
He added that it involved ‘crossparty representation of members of the dail’, the Irish Parliament.
Challenged last night that he had acted as an apologist for the New IRA after Ms McKee’s killing, Mr Downing said: ‘We made a statement, the statement makes clear our position.
‘ We are opposed to the British imperialist occupation of the six North-Eastern counties of Northern Ireland. There was a meeting of a few TDs (MPs) from Ireland… I thought it was a good meeting, we defended them. I have nothing to add.’