[Ramrod]

As the Guardian, that noted bastion of Orangeism, said in an editorial in 1996: ‘Mr Corbyn’s actions do not advance the cause of peace in Northern Ireland and are not seriously intended to do so’. That was a week after an IRA bomb had exploded in London’s Docklands, in response to which Corbyn invited Gerry Adams to Westminster. As the Guardian put it, this episode provided a showcase for Corbyn’s ‘abiding’ qualities:

‘…his lack of wider political and moral judgment, his predilection for gesture politics, his insensitivity to the feelings of most Londoners and his indifference to the policies of his party’.

The paper concluded, ‘Mr Corbyn is a fool, and a fool whom the Labour party would probably be better off without’.

It is true that the UK government talked with terrorists. True that it opened unofficial, back channel, communications with the Provisional IRA at regular intervals. True that, since the peace process reached its tipping point, Sinn Fein have become almost respectable and, as such, have been welcomed into the body of the kirk, the better to ensure there is no slippage and no return to the ghastly bad old days. But those government contacts were of a quite different order to Jeremy Corbyn’s contacts and relationship with the republican movement. They were contacts designed to explore the possibility of ending the violence. They were not conducted in a spirit of fellow-travelling. For Corbyn and his ilk, only the provisionals represented the true spirit of Ireland. They, not constitutional nationalists, were the legitimate voice of Ireland. It was a shameful position to hold then and no amount of whitewash or revisionism can alter that.

link