We all knew perfectly well that the billionaire right-wing press barons and their lackeys in the Tory party would attempt to smear the hell out of Jeremy Corbyn during this election campaign.
They hate his policies of standing up for ordinary people and repatriating vital British infrastructure and services out of the hands of profiteering corporations and foreign government like China and Qatar.
They hate his policies so much they're absolutely fixated on trying to destroy his reputation with anything they've got, and his early involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process is seriously the best attack line they can come up with, because they know it feeds into the hateful anti-Irish bigotry that still unfortunately exists in Great Britain.
In this article I'm going to set the record straight by detailing 9 things that every single voter should know about the Corbyn-IRA smear campaign.
1. Condemning the IRA bombings (part one)
When Jeremy Corbyn was interviewed by Sophy Ridge during the 2017 election campaign he clearly condemned the IRA bombings, but the Tories outright lied that he didn't.
The right-wing propagandists really seem to believe that people will mindlessly lap up their reality-reversing lies rather than quickly checking things for themselves (see video)
2. Condemning the IRA bombings (part two)
Anyone who says that Jeremy Corbyn has "never" condemned the IRA bombings is lying through their teeth. In 1994 Corbyn signed a parliamentary motion on the 20th anniversary of the IRA pub bombing in Birmingham which described the attack as a deplorable terrorist atrocity.
It's on the parliamentary record here for all to see.
3. Misrepresentations (Sinn Féin are not the IRA)
Anyone sharing pictures of Jeremy Corbyn with people like Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness to "prove" that he met the IRA is either being thick, or totally disingenuous.
Adams and McGuinness were not the IRA, they were leaders of the democratic political party Sinn Féin, which is the political wing of the Irish Republican movement, not the now-disbanded terrorist faction.
People who share these pictures are either so blinded by anti-Irish bigotry that they can't differentiate between a political party and a terrorist organisation, or they know the difference perfectly well, but they're sharing the pictures in order to feed into the anti-Irish bigotry of people they consider to gullible and easily led.
4. Peacemaker
In 2013 Jeremy Corbyn was awarded the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award for his efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.
You can read his acceptance speech here.
5. The Loyalists
The right-wing smear merchants are always desperate to bring up the fact that Corbyn met with Irish republicans, but they're a lot more reticent about the fact he also met plenty of loyalists too in his campaign for peace.
Corbyn met with Gary McMichael and David Ervine (Ervine was a jailed loyalist terrorist turned politician for the PUP), and he also spoke regularly with Ian Paisley who, according to his widow Eileen, considered Corbyn to be "likeable", "courteous", "polite" and "a gentleman".
In light of the indisputable fact that Ian Paisley was a fierce opponent of Irish republicanism, why on earth would he say such things about a guy, who according to the Tory smears, was undermining the loyalist cause by promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict?
6. Openness vs Secrecy
Corbyn spoke openly to Irish republicans and Ulster Loyalists during the 1980s. Nobody is denying that.
The problem for the Tories is that declassified records prove that Margaret Thatcher was secretly negotiating direct with the IRA terrorists at the time. The shocking thing isn't that she was negotiating with terrorists though, it's the fact that she outright lied to the British public over and again every time she repeated her "we do not negotiate with terrorists" phrase.
People who attack Corbyn for openly talking peace, whilst refusing to condemn Thatcher's secret negotiations with the IRA, or the succession of lies she told to the British public are clearly as happy with secrecy and lies from right-wingers as they are furious with openness and honesty from left-wingers.
7. Abject Tory hypocrisy (that councillor)
If right-wingers really honestly cared about criticising politicians with links to the IRA, why is it that they're perfectly happy to have an ex-IRA terrorist and arms smuggler serving as a Tory councillor in Croydon?
You can find more details on this ex-IRA Tory politician in this article, or by Googling "Maria Gatland" for yourself.
8. Boris Johnson's super-hypocrisy
Of all the people resorting to IRA-Corbyn smears, the crap-haired buffoon Boris Johnson surely has to be the most hypocritical.
Not only did Boris share a picture of Corbyn with a member of Sinn Féin to "prove" that he met the IRA (refer back to point three and draw your own conclusions about whether Boris is being intensely thick or sickeningly disingenuous) he also claimed that this picture of Corbyn and McGuinness in the 1990s (while the peace process was really beginning to move forward) was proof that Corbyn is untrustworthy!
An accusation of untrustworthiness from a man who repeatedly lied that the NHS would get £350 million a week extra after Brexit!
Even if you agree with Brexit, only the worst kind of political tribalist could possibly try to argue that Boris brazenly lying to the British public like that in order to swing the vote was acceptable and trustworthy conduct.
9. Sheer bloody desperation
Perhaps the most important point of all is the sheer desperation that these Tory-IRA smears demonstrate.
They don't have any positive policies of their own to promote. They don't have any coherent criticisms of Corbyn's policies. So all they have left is a sickening smear campaign in the desperate hope that a combination of public fact aversion and anti-Irish bigotry is enough to put people off voting in favour of Labour's transformational manifesto.
They don't have a single legitimate argument in favour of themselves, or against Labour's policies so they're resorting to the dirtiest muck-slinging tactics possible.
I'll leave you with a quote from Margaret Thatcher about that kind of politics:
"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left." - Margaret Thatcher
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
We all knew perfectly well that the billionaire right-wing press barons and their lackeys in the Tory party would attempt to smear the hell out of Jeremy Corbyn during this election campaign.
They hate his policies of standing up for ordinary people and repatriating vital British infrastructure and services out of the hands of multinational corporations and foreign government like China and Qatar.
They hate his policies so much they're absolutely fixated on trying to destroy his reputation with anything they've got, and his early involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process is seriously the best they can come up with, because they know it feeds into the anti-Irish bigotry that still unfortunately exists in Great Britain.
In this article I'm going to set the record straight by detailing 9 things that every voter should know about the Corbyn-IRA smear campaign.
1. Condemning the IRA bombings (part one)
When Jeremy Corbyn was interviewed by Sophy Ridge during the 2017 election campaign he clearly condemned the IRA bombings, but the Tories outright lied that he didn't.
The right-wing propagandists really seem to believe that people will mindlessly lap up their reality-reversing lies rather than quickly checking things for themselves (see video)
2. Condemning the IRA bombings (part two)
Anyone who says that Jeremy Corbyn has "never" condemned the IRA bombings is lying through their teeth. In 1994 Corbyn signed a parliamentary motion on the 20th anniversary of the IRA pub bombing in Birmingham which described the attack as a deplorable terrorist atrocity.
It's on the parliamentary record here for all to see.
3. Misrepresentations (Sinn Féin are not the IRA)
Anyone sharing pictures of Jeremy Corbyn with people like Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness to "prove" that he met the IRA is either being thick, or totally disingenuous.
Adams and McGuinness were not the IRA, they were leaders of the democratic political party Sinn Féin, which is the political wing of the Irish Republican movement, not the now-disbanded terrorist faction.
People who share these pictures are either so blinded by anti-Irish bigotry that they can't differentiate between a political party and a terrorist organisation, or they know the difference perfectly well, but they're sharing the pictures in order to feed into the anti-Irish bigotry of people they consider to gullible and easily led.
4. Peacemaker
In 2013 Jeremy Corbyn was awarded the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award for his efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.
You can read his acceptance speech here.
5. The Loyalists
The right-wing smear merchants are always desperate to bring up the fact that Corbyn met with Irish republicans, but they're a lot more reticent about the fact he also met plenty of Loyalists too in his campaign for peace.
Corbyn met with Gary McMichael and David Ervine (Ervine was a jailed loyalist terrorist turned politician for the PUP), and he also spoke regularly with Ian Paisley who, according to his widow Eileen, considered Corbyn to be "likeable", "courteous", "polite" and "a gentleman".
In light of the indisputable fact that Ian Paisley was a fierce opponent of Irish republicanism, why on earth would he say such things about a guy, who according to the Tory smears, was undermining the loyalist cause by promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict?
6. Openness vs Secrecy
Corbyn spoke openly to Irish republicans and Ulster Loyalists during the 1980s. Nobody is denying that.
The problem for the Tories is that declassified records prove that Margaret Thatcher was secretly negotiating direct with the IRA terrorists at the time. The shocking thing isn't that she was negotiating with terrorists though, it's the fact that she outright lied to the British public over and again every time she repeated her "we do not negotiate with terrorists" phrase.
People who attack Corbyn for openly talking peace, whilst refusing to condemn Thatcher's secret negotiations with the IRA, or the succession of lies she told to the British public are clearly as happy with secrecy and lies from right-wingers as they are furious with openness and honesty from left-wingers.
7. Abject Tory hypocrisy (that councillor)
If right-wingers really honestly cared about criticising politicians with links to the IRA, why is it that they're perfectly happy to have an ex-IRA terrorist and arms smuggler serving as a Tory councillor in Croydon?
You can find more details on this ex-IRA Tory politician in this article, or by Googling "Maria Gatland" for yourself.
8. Boris Johnson's super-hypocrisy
Of all the people resorting to IRA-Corbyn smears, the crap-haired buffoon Boris Johnson surely has to be the most hypocritical.
Not only did Boris share a picture of Corbyn with a member of Sinn Féin to "prove" that he met the IRA (refer back to point three and draw your own conclusions about whether Boris is being intensely thick or sickeningly disingenuous) he also claimed that this picture of Corbyn and McGuinness in the 1990s (while the peace process was really beginning to move forward) was proof that Corbyn is untrustworthy!
An accusation of untrustworthiness from a man who repeatedly lied that the NHS would get £350 million a week extra after Brexit!
Even if you agree with Brexit, only the worst kind of political tribalist could possibly try to argue that Boris brazenly lying to the British public like that in order to swing the vote was acceptable and trustworthy conduct.
9. Sheer bloody desperation
Perhaps the most important point of all is the sheer desperation that these Tory-IRA smears demonstrate.
They don't have any positive policies of their own to promote. They don't have any coherent criticisms of Corbyn's policies. So all they have left is a sickening smear campaign in the desperate hope that a combination of public fact aversion and anti-Irish bigotry is enough to put people off voting in favour of Labour's transformational manifesto.
They don't have a single legitimate argument in favour of themselves, or against Labour's policies so they're resorting to the dirtiest muck-slinging tactics possible.
I'll leave you with a quote from Margaret Thatcher about that kind of politics:
"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left." - Margaret Thatcher
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
An awful lot of thickos are sharing pictures of Jeremy Corbyn with Irish people in order to try and "prove" that he met the IRA.
The problem of course is that they're thick, so they don't understand the difference between Sinn Féin (a political party) and the IRA (a disbanded terrorist organisation).
One of the most commonly shared pictures is the one in the header image, which shows Jeremy Corbyn with Gerry Adams, who is the leader of Sinn Féin.
The picture was taken in 1995, after the Downing Street Declaration (an agreement between the UK and Ireland that the Northern Irish people had the right to self determination) which led to the first IRA ceasefire.
Corbyn had been pushing the IRA to abandon the bombings and sit down to negotiate since the 1980s. By 1995 the Conservative Prime Minister John Major had taken the first hugely important steps towards peace in Northern Ireland.
It was just a few years later that the Good Friday Agreement was signed (one of the truly great achievements during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party) and the principle of power sharing was established.
It was far from easy, but the sight of Ian Paisley (a fierce loyalist) and Martin McGuinness (of Sinn Féin) talking to each other, and working together, and even becoming friends, was something that was impossible to imagine back at the height of the troubles.
The fact that these fierce ideological opponents managed to put their differences aside and work for the good of the people of Northern Ireland should be an inspiration to us all, but to some intensely bigoted right-wingers it's not an incredible success story at all.
The problem is that some people are intent on digging up the anti-Irish animosities of the past and ignorantly using them in attempted smears against Jeremy Corbyn.
It's as if they wish that peacemakers like Jeremy Corbyn had failed, and that people in Northern Ireland were still being killed and maimed, and that the IRA were still planting bombs in England, and the loyalist paramilitaries were still exacting gruesome revenge.
It's as if they're still fighting the war in their sick little minds, even long after the main combatants sat down and negotiated a peaceful settlement.
Patriotism? Don't make me laugh
Make no mistake, a lot of these smear-merchants are not patriots, they're anything but.
They hate Jeremy Corbyn's policy of bringing British infrastructure and services back under British control with a burning ideological passion.
These people adore the Tory determination to sell Britain off piece by piece, regardless of whether the pieces eventually end up under the control of the Chinese communists or the Islamist tyrants in Qatar.
They don't care if Communist China, the Islamist tyrants in Qatar, or whoever get a slice, as long as they have the chance to take a lucrative slice of British public infrastructure for themselves too so they can milk the British public for all they're worth.
They know Theresa May wants to keep things this way, so they'll smear, and smear, and smear.
These sick smear-merchants don't care about Britain or the British in the slightest.
They're just trying to smear Jeremy Corbyn by whipping up anti-Irish hatred of the past to serve their own sick selfish interests.
So if you see anyone (like the right-wing slob Paul Staines - AKA Guido Fawkes) smearing away in this bigoted manner:
Tell them that they're thick as fuck if they actually believe what they're sharing, and an economic traitor to boot for using anti-Irish smear tactics to help Theresa May keep our public infrastructure and services under Chinese control.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
The Tories and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media are now so rattled by the fallout from the woeful week they've been having (Philip Hammond getting his sums wrong by a mind-boggling £20 billion, their shambolic "magic money tree" manifesto. their depraved Dementia Tax policy of asset stripping elderly people, Theresa May's deranged Facebook meltdown, Boris Johnson and Damian Green making absolute fools of themselves on the BBC) that they've resorted to recycling the tired old Jeremy Corbyn-IRA smears and outright lies.
Sophie Ridge on Sky News tried to browbeat Corbyn over the fact he talked to the IRA, but he just talked sense. He explained the absolute futility of the hard line military approach to the problem and explained that what actually resulted in the peaceful settlement was the negotiation process, and he strongly condemned the IRA (and everyone else in the conflict) who planted bombs and killed innocent civilians.
Watch the video clip:
You heard Corbyn renounce the violence of the IRA there right?
Here's another clip of Corbyn condemning the violence of the IRA just for good measure:
And here's the outrageous Tory Party Press Office reaction to that interview:
It's a brazen and outrageous lie, but the Tories are obviously so rattled now that they've got nothing else to resort to but this kind of desperately dishonest shit-slinging.
Even if you don't like Corbyn, his policies, or his efforts to bring about a peaceful settlement to the violence in Northern Ireland, you've got to accept that dishonest smearing like this is utterly beneath contempt haven't you?
How to deal with these lies
The Tories rely on these outrageous lies to disgust people into rejecting Jeremy Corbyn.
Every single time you see or hear some right-winger trying to smear Jeremy Corbyn for seeking a negotiated peace settlement with the IRA ask them to explain these four things.
1. Tell them that Jeremy Corbyn has publicly condemned the IRA bombings, and all the bombings during the civil war in Northern Ireland. Ask them to watch the clips above and admit it.
2. Tell them that when Jeremy Corbyn was openly and honestly talking to the IRA to try to get them to stop the bombings and negotiate a peaceful settlement, Margaret Thatcher was holding secret negotiations with the IRA whilst brazenly lying to the British public that "we do not negotiate with terrorists". Ask them whether they prefer the Jeremy Corbyn's honesty or Margaret Thatcher's outright lies to the British public.
3. Ask them if they know about the serving Tory councillor Maria Gatland who was literally a member of the IRA in the 1970s and worked to smuggle guns for them to kill civilians with? Ask them if Corbyn talking to the IRA to persuade them to renounce violence was some kind of unforgivable crime, how come it's fine for a Tory politician to have actually been members of the IRA?
4. Ask them if they know about the unelected Tory peer David James who has openly admitted that he used to launder money for the IRA? Ask them if Corbyn talking to the IRA to persuade them to renounce violence was some kind of unforgivable crime, how come it's fine for a Tory politician to have actually laundered money for the IRA?
If video evidence, undeniable facts and absolute proof of sickening Tory hypocrisy aren't enough to beat these Tory liars, then sadly nothing ever will be, but just by standing up to them and confronting them with evidence weakens their position, and exposes them as a shockingly dishonest bunch of smear-artists.
If there is any sense of decency left in Britain these outright lies will backfire, and people will decide not to vote for a party that is so willing to lie to the British public in order to try to keep their grip on political power.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
One of the most commonly occurring personal attack points that right-wingers use against Jeremy Corbyn is that he openly talked to the IRA in the 1980s and '90s.
The problem with this right-wing narrative (like with so many other right-wing narratives) is that it's totally undermined by facts and reality.
These people know that Corbyn talked to the IRA because he did it openly, but at the very same time Corbyn was openly talking to the IRA the political establishment were conducting secret backdoor deals with them.
It's astoundingly hypocritical for right-wingers to slam Corbyn for having openly talked to the IRA when the political establishment they're defending were doing the same thing in but in secret for decades. But then hypocrisy (which stems from fact-aversion and immunity to cognitive dissonance) is an extremely common trait amongst right-wingers, and especially extreme right-wingers isn't it?
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
On the day that the death of Martin McGuinness was announced, the unelected Tory peer Norman Tebbit was given an awful lot of airplay and column inches to spit his bile.
Tebbit wished McGuinness an "eternity in hell", blabbered a load of conspiracy theory nonsense about how McGuinness was a "coward" because he sought peace instead of continuing the deadly civil war, and claimed that the world is "a sweeter place" for the fact that McGuinness has died of a rare genetic disease.
Of course Tebbit's comments should be seen in the context of the Brighton IRA bombing in which his wife was crippled, but they still come across as the ramblings of a bitter old man, especially when compared to the comments of Jo Berry, the daughter of the Tory MP Anthony Berry who actually died in the Brighton bombing.
She said that McGuinness' legacy was one of "reconciliation and peace-building", that he "showed us how to move forward and showed us a way where former enemies can work together for the peace of the whole ... what we have now is so much better than what I grew up in. What we have now is peace".
Another factor to consider when it comes to Tebbit's furious hate-driven bile against one of his recently deceased political adversaries is the wave of staggeringly hypocritical right-wing political correctness that washed over the UK after Margaret Thatcher died. How dare people criticise a recently deceased politician the right-wingers wailed back then, but here we have one of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet ministers spewing abuse at a recently deceased politician and right-wingers are lapping it up like manna from heaven.
Just in case you're not quite convinced that Tebbit's comments are not the distasteful ramblings of a bitter and extremely right-wing man, here's an extraordinary Norman Tebbit quote about his old friend Jimmy Savile to illustrate how much of a good judge of character he isn't:
"I've got no doubt Jimmy Savile was a very odd fellow, and I'm pretty sure he was in breach of the law on a number of matters. But I do not know that it's possible, 40 years on, to do justice in the sense of knowing just how many of those allegations are complete and true." [source]
So in the mind of Norman Tebbit the guy who sat down with his sworn enemies to bring peace to Northern Ireland (something that seemed impossible in the 1970s and 80s) is some kind of monster who is beyond redemption, but Jimmy Savile is the kind of man you make excuses for by casting doubt on the testimony of his victims.
It's clear that Tebbit's rotten worldview is almost completely determined by his allegiance to the Tory party of the 1980s.
It doesn't matter how disgusting the crimes that were committed, if the guy was sympathetic to the Thatcher regime Tebbit will make excuses for him, but if they were an enemy of Thatcher's, then he hates them with an furious passion, even if they renounced violence and became one of the main players in bringing the deadly civil war in Northern Ireland to an end!
What a bitter, paedophile-excusing old Tory.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
Not only did Boris share a picture of Corbyn with a member of Sinn Féin to "prove" that he met the IRA (refer back to point three and draw your own conclusions about whether Boris is being intensely thick or sickeningly disingenuous) he also claimed that this picture of Corbyn and McGuinness in the 1990s (while the peace process was really beginning to move forward) was proof that Corbyn is untrustworthy!
