Express & Star

IRA victims urge voters to turn their backs on Jeremy Corbyn

Victims of the IRA's deadly bombing campaign have urged Labour voters to turn their backs on Jeremy Corbyn in the general election.

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Ian Austin is calling on people to vote Tory to stop Jeremy Corbyn from gaining power

A number of victims and their families have come forward to speak out against the Labour leader, branding him unfit to head the country due to his past associations with the IRA.

They include the family of Trooper Simon Tipper, who grew up in Dudley and was murdered in the Hyde Park bomb at the age of 19.

His brother Mark Tipper said: "I miss our kid as though it were yesterday. He was a good boy.

"He always wanted to be a soldier.

"We’re patriotic. Our veins run red, white and blue."

Trooper Simon Tipper was killed by the IRA in the Hyde Park bombings in 1982.

Asked if he would vote Labour with Mr Corbyn as leader, he said: "No, not now. I couldn’t. You can’t trust the man. Corbyn and McDonnell are not fit to run our country."

He described their attitude towards the IRA as "utterly disgusting", and asked of Mr Corbyn: "You tell me when he’s backed a soldier.

"I have never known him stick up for this country. It hurts to think this man could run this country."

The victims and their families were interviewed by former Labour MP Ian Austin, who stood down in Dudley North and urged people to vote Tory in a bid to stop Mr Corbyn from entering Number 10.

Mr Austin is among 15 former Labour MPs who have signed a full-page advert due to appear in a number of local newspapers across Labour’s heartlands today urging voters not to back Mr Corbyn.

Mr Corbyn has a long running association with the IRA, having invited two suspected terrorists to Parliament after the IRA had bombed the Tory conference in Brighton in 1984.

He was arrested in 1986 for taking part in a protest by IRA sympathisers to "show solidarity" with accused terrorists, including the Brighton bomber.

IRA victim John Radley said of Mr Corbyn: "He is undemocratic, unpatriotic. He hates his country.

"It is shocking to believe that a man leading a major political party is known to have sympathies towards terrorist organisations which have murdered countless civilians and soldiers."

Mr Radley, 60, was a 21-year-old in the First Battalion of the Irish Guards when an IRA nail bomb exploded at Chelsea Barracks in 1981.

Two people died, 21 were injured and Mr Radley was left for dead.

He spent three-and-a-half weeks in intensive care with six-inch nails embedded in his neck and head and was visually impaired by a shard of glass in his eye.

"People say that can't stand another five years of Tory austerity. Well, I have to say I find the prospect of having a terrorist sympathiser as our Prime Minister even worse," he said.

"He is no better than the maggots he mixed with. I have voted Labour many times. Even after the bombing, I voted for them.

"But now with Jeremy Corbyn as leader, he has without doubt cost the Labour party this election.

"I believe if it was not for Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, Labour would possible have a chance of winning power."

Other victims include Mike Drew, 49, from Bristol, who had only been in the army a few months when he survived the Ballygawley bus bomb in 1988.

He said he had voted Labour in the past but is "aghast" at the idea of Mr Corbyn or Mr McDonnell in power.

"I couldn’t think of anything worse. I could never vote for anything to do with them," he said.

Mr Austin said it was "heart-breaking" listening to their stories. "Nothing prepares you for listening to people who were blown up or whose mother or brothers were murdered in their campaign of terror," he said.

"They were each affected in different ways – but they all say Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are completely unfit to run our country."

Mr Austin added that Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell "always seem to back Britain’s enemies and they can’t be trusted to defend us against terrorism".

"That’s why we must stop them getting anywhere near Number Ten," he said.

Mr Corbyn faced criticism over his IRA links at a recent campaign event in Upper Gornal, where protesters greeted him with cries of "IRA scum". He declined to comment on the matter during an interview with the Express & Star.

The Labour Party insists that Mr Corbyn has never been a supporter of the IRA.