do we really want this guy to run our country?

[john sutton]

Early career and political activities
Returning to the UK in 1971, he worked as an official for the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers.[15] Corbyn began a course in Trade Union Studies at North London Polytechnic but left after a year without a degree after a series of arguments with his tutors over the curriculum.[23][24] He worked as a trade union organiser for the National Union of Public Employees and Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union,[15][19][25] where his union was approached by Tony Benn and "encouraged ... to produce a blueprint for workers' control of British Leyland"; the plans did not proceed after Benn was moved to a different Department.[26]

He was appointed a member of a district health authority and in early 1974, at the age of 24, he was elected to Haringey Council in South Hornsey ward.[27] After boundary changes in 1978 he was re-elected in Harringay ward as councillor, remaining so until 1983.[11][28] As a delegate from Hornsey to the Labour Party conference in 1978, Corbyn successfully moved a motion calling for dentists to be employed by the NHS rather than private contractors.[29] He also spoke in another debate, describing a motion calling for greater support for law and order as "more appropriate to the National Front than to the Labour Party".[30]

Corbyn became the local Labour Party's agent and organiser,[31] and had responsibility for the 1979 general election campaign in Hornsey.[15] Around this time, he became involved with London Labour Briefing, where he was a contributor and member of the editorial board during the 1980s. It has been reported that he served as its general secretary for some time.[32] He worked on Tony Benn's unsuccessful deputy leadership campaign in 1981. He was keen to allow former International Marxist Group member Tariq Ali to join the party, despite Labour's National Executive having declared him unacceptable, and declared that "so far as we are concerned ... he's a member of the party and he'll be issued with a card."[33] In May 1982, when Corbyn was chairman of the Constituency Labour Party, Ali was given a party card signed by Corbyn;[34] in November the local party voted by 17 to 14 to insist on his membership "up to and including the point of disbandment of the party".[35]

In the July 1982 edition of London Labour Briefing, Jeremy Corbyn opposed expulsions of the Militant tendency, saying that "If expulsions are in order for Militant, they should apply to us too." In the same year, he was the "provisional convener" of "Defeat the Witch-Hunt Campaign", based at Corbyn's then address.[36]

Parliamentary backbencher (1983–2015)
Labour in opposition (1983–97)
Corbyn was selected as the Labour Party candidate for the constituency of Islington North, in February 1982,[19][37] winning the final ballot by 39 votes against 35 for GLC councillor Paul Boateng.[15] At the 1983 general election he was elected Member of Parliament for Islington North,[19] after defeating the incumbent Michael O'Halloran and immediately joined the socialist Campaign Group, later becoming secretary of the group.[38][39] Shortly after being elected to parliament, he began writing a weekly column for the Morning Star,[40] saying in May 2015 that "the Star is the most precious and only voice we have in the daily media".[41] Corbyn was a campaigner against apartheid in South Africa, serving on the National Executive of the Anti-Apartheid Movement,[42] and was arrested in 1984 while demonstrating outside South Africa House.[43][44]

During the BBC's Newsnight in 1984, Conservative MP Terry Dicks asserted that so-called Labour scruffs (such as Corbyn, who at this time was known for wearing open-necked shirts to the Commons[45]) should be banned from addressing the House of Commons unless they maintained higher standards. Corbyn responded, saying that: "It's not a fashion parade, it's not a gentleman's club, it's not a bankers' institute, it's a place where the people are represented."[46]

Sinn Féin, IRA and similar links
In 1984 Corbyn and Ken Livingstone were criticised for inviting two convicted Provisional IRA members as well as Gerry Adams and other members of the Irish Republican party Sinn Féin to Westminster three weeks after the Brighton hotel bombing, an attack carried out by the IRA that killed five people.[47][48][49] He became known during the 1980s for his work on behalf of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, who were eventually found to have been wrongly convicted of responsibility for a series of bombings carried out in England in the mid-1970s by the IRA that killed 28 people.[50][51][52][53][54] In the run up to the 2017 General Election, Corbyn said that he had "never met the IRA", although Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott later clarified that although he had met members of the IRA, "he met with them in their capacity as activists in Sinn Fein".[55][56]

Corbyn was arrested in 1986 for protesting against the trial of a group of IRA members including the Brighton Bomber Patrick Magee. Magee was convicted of murdering five people and the group were convicted of planning a "massive bombing campaign in London and seaside resorts". After refusing police requests to move from outside the court, Corbyn and the other protesters were arrested for obstruction and held for five hours before being released on bail, but were not charged.[57] Following the 1987 Loughgall ambush, in which 9 IRA members were killed while trying to blow up a police station, he attended a commemoration by the Wolfe Tone Society and stated "I’m happy to commemorate all those who died fighting for an independent Ireland’.[58][59]

In the early 1990s, MI5 opened a file on Corbyn over fears his IRA links meant he could have been a threat to national security.[60][61] The Metropolitan Police's Special Branch was also monitoring Corbyn at the time, and continued to monitor him for two decades over fears he was attempting to "undermine democracy".[62][63] According to The Sunday Times, following research in Irish and Republican archives, Corbyn was involved in over 72 events connected with Sinn Fein, or other pro-republican groups, during the period of the IRA's paramilitary campaign.[64]

Corbyn supported the campaign to overturn the convictions of Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami for the 1994 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London; Botmeh and Alami had admitted possessing explosives and guns but denied they were for use in Britain. The convictions were upheld by the High Court of Justice in 2001 and by the European Court of Human Rights in 2007.[65][66]

Poll tax protests and select committee membership
In 1990, Corbyn opposed the Community Charge, or Poll Tax,[67] nearly going to jail for not paying the tax.[43]

Corbyn sat on the Social Security Select Committee from 1992 to 1997, the London Regional Select Committee from 2009 to 2010, and the Justice Select Committee from 2010 to 2015.[68]

[Keith at Tregenna]

Re: do we really want this guy to run our country?

You already have Mayhem May.

[cappy]

doesnnt that just say it all .....he has done nothing but stir trouble for the country of his birth ...what a sick little man.......but like the rising and collapse of sturgeon in scotland he will disappear as quick at the hands of his own party........thanks for the truth of this wart on the country.....perhaps he should get two passports and join the sinn fein...cappy

[Keith at Tregenna]

"i would have come to yor home and pulled you bloody face off ...ok little man ...cappy now go and squark to the moderator ....or kick your sheep" Cappy.

And you think Corbyn is sick ?

[cappy]

"i would have come to yor home and pulled you bloody face off ...ok little man ...cappy now go and squark to the moderator ....or kick your sheep" Cappy.

And you think Corbyn is sick ?

##oops theyve let you out again herr plop.....in an earlier post you stated your going to shields ...i would love to see you please tell me when herr plop

[Keith at Tregenna]

More threats ?

[cappy]

More threats ?

###plop

[Louis the fly]

Do we really want this guy to run our country ?

Yes as soon as possible.

[vic mcclymont]

Louis, he'll run the country for five minutes then that Marxist twat McDonnell will takeover.
Vic

[Keith at Tregenna]

do we really want this guy to run our country ?

Yes as soon as possible.

anyone other than may