BRITAIN’S shadow chancellor has apologised for saying the IRA should be “honoured” – and for joking about assassinating Margaret Thatcher.
John McDonnell, who was appointed shadow chancellor by new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at the weekend, appeared on BBC’s Question Time last night where he apologised for the comments, which he made in 2003.
“If I gave offence, and I clearly have, from the bottom of my heart I apologise, I apologise,” he said.
Mr McDonnell’s comments about the IRA came at a rally in London 12 years ago to commemorate republican hunger striker Bobby Sands.
Speaking at the rally, he said it was “about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle”.
He went on to attribute the peace in the North of Ireland to the sacrifice of republicans like Bobby Sands.
But Mr McDonnell acknowledged that his comments were inappropriate.
“I accept it was a mistake to use those words, but actually if it contributed towards saving one life, or preventing someone else being maimed, it was worth doing because we did hold onto the peace process,” he said.
“There was a real risk of the Republican movement splitting, and some continuing with the armed process. If I gave offence, and I clearly have, from the bottom of my heart I apologise.”
Colin Parry, whose son Tim was killed in the 1993 IRA bomb attacks in Warrington, responded to Mr McDonnell’s comments on BBC Radio 4 this morning.
“It certainly was offensive at the time and still is offensive now,” Mr Parry said.
“To use the words he did so explicitly back then, they don’t sound like chance remarks that were thrown out in the hope that he was assisting the Peace Process.”
He was the centre of controversy again in 2010, when he said he wished he could go back in time and “assassinate Thatcher”.
Mr McDonnell, who was a founder of the Irish in Britain Parliamentary Group in 1998, labelled his joke about Mrs Thatcher as “appalling”.
He also addressed Jeremy Corbyn’s silence during the British national anthem earlier this week, saying: “It was quite a moving event and he was casting his mind back to the war.”
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