Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has launched an extraordinary attack on Heritage and Destiny, calling for our meetings to be banned. In a letter to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, Corbyn has targeted our European correspondent Isabel Peralta, demanding that she should be refused entry to the United Kingdom.
Isabel has never been convicted of any crime, but has twice been detained and questioned by UK Border Force, abusing their powers under the Terrorism Act.
Anyone interested in real terrorism should be looking not at Heritage & Destiny and Isabel Peralta, but at the close allies of Jeremy Corbyn, who has for decades been known as terrorism’s best friend in Parliament. [This article is also published in Spanish – please click here for the Spanish translation.]
From 1985 to 1989 Corbyn was national secretary and later president of the notoriously violent group Anti-Fascist Action. AFA’s terrorist core – Red Action – held its meetings in Corbyn’s constituency office in Islington, north London, and provided security for Corbyn and for one of his closest political allies, IRA godfather Gerry Adams.
Even Corbyn’s own party has often been embarrassed by his especially close ties to the IRA. In 1984 Corbyn was reprimanded by Labour’s chief whip for taking IRA terrorists on a tour of Parliament. In 1987 Corbyn tried to appoint a notorious Irish republican sympathiser and anarchist, Ronan Bennett, as his parliamentary research assistant, but the authorities refused on security grounds to give Bennett a House of Commons pass.
Two of Corbyn’s comrades in Anti-Fascist Action and Red Action – Patrick Hayes (AFA London organiser) and Jan Taylor – were given long jail sentences for bombing the Harrods store in London on behalf of the IRA. Their fellow AFA activist, Liam Heffernan, was jailed for stealing explosives on behalf of another republican terrorist gang, the INLA.
A senior police officer later told the Sunday Times that Corbyn “knew they were open supporters of terrorism and he supported them”.
There has never been any suggestion that Corbyn was personally involved in specific acts of terrorism, but for decades police and security services monitored his close connections with terrorists and their active supporters. They were especially concerned that terrorists invited into Westminster premises by Corbyn had been able to familiarise themselves with the layout and security of the Houses of Parliament.
In 1985, Corbyn was the keynote speaker at Red Action’s national meeting. He maintained close ties for years to Red Action, a group whose journal openly stated: “both as an organisation and as individuals we support the activities of the Provisional IRA and the INLA unconditionally and uncritically.”
Some of the paymasters of “anti-fascism” will be embarrassed by the fact that Jeremy Corbyn is now championing their cause. In addition to his support for the IRA, Corbyn has frequently been accused of “anti-semitism”, for example over his praise for a mural that promoted allegedly “anti-semitic tropes”.
H&D has been contacted by several Londoners appalled by Corbyn’s consistent association with terrorists and their propagandists. We have been offered premises in Corbyn’s Islington constituency to hold our next meeting, and we are discussing several options for this event.
Unlike Jeremy Corbyn’s murderous friends and allies, Isabel Peralta – the young Spanish activist whom Corbyn has so disgracefully targeted – has never committed any offence against UK law. In reply to Corbyn’s attack, Isabel writes:
“I honestly find it hard to believe that my mere presence in a country is so dangerous that even one of the main English politicians, former leader of the second-largest political force in England, writes to the Home Secretary asking for me to be banned. I find it difficult to believe that someone who has not committed any crime and has never been convicted is ostracised or exiled from several European countries. But it is like this. Our fanaticism moves mountains and our enemies have more faith in our triumph than we do ourselves.
“One does not fear a madman, one does not take seriously a merely anachronistic or atavistic enemy. There is fear of a revolution. We are a revolution, a living, organic idea, destined to be proudly implemented throughout Europe.”
Let there be no doubt: H&D will continue to expose the truth about Jeremy Corbyn and his crazed Marxist and Irish Republican friends. We shall continue to fight for the true Europe. And we shall contest (at whatever level proves necessary) any attempt to intimidate or exclude our comrade and European correspondent Isabel Peralta.
For further information on “Who are the real terrorists?” click here to read an article by H&D’s assistant editor.
