Boris Johnson, Sinn Fein, & The Labour Leadership Contest

Last week Ed Moloney teased out some Tory hypocrisy in respect of the Labour Party leadership 
race.  Ed Moloney blogs @ The Broken Elbow.


A front-page story today in the British Army and MI5’s favourite morning read, The Daily Telegraph, has Boris Johnson, public school buffoon, London Lord Mayor and Bullingdon Club vandal (along with David Cameron and his finance chief, George Osborne), attacking left-wing(‘ish) Labour Party leader candidate, Jeremy Corbyn for his sympathies for Sinn Fein (I say ‘ish because a real leftie surely would have quit the moment Tony Blair took the crown!)

This is what the Telegraph article headline looks like:


The Bold Boris labels Corbyn ‘Sinn Fein-loving’, which is probably not inaccurate. As for being ‘monarchy-baiting’, that sounds like a pretty good reason to vote for him.

But on the question of this all being unbelievably good luck for the Tories, I just have one question.

When it comes to Sinn Fein-loving Labour leaders, there is something in my memory banks that tells me that as far as that activity was concerned, no-one could hold a candle to one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, formerly known as the leader of the British Labour Party and one-time prime minister of Britain.

The Bullingdon Bullies at Oxford. Boris is seated far right (where else?) and Cameron is back row, second from left


In the business of indulging Sinn Fein and the IRA, turning a blind eye to DAAD killings, Northern Bank robberies, bar stabbings, grudge shootings and so many breaches of ceasefire conditions along with concession after concession – so numerous and generous that it took the White House to call an end to the giveaways – surely Tony Blair and not Jeremy Corbyn is the real Sinn Fein-lover here?

So, why no fuss from Boris and his buddies when Tony Blair was giving Sinn Fein not just the shop but the key to the shop? Why no reminder now of the real truth about all this?

But there’s the rub. Tony was then Tory-lite, virtually indistinguishable from the Conservatives, and now is the spokesman for the Labour Party’s neo-liberal opposition to Jeremy Corbyn, the only thing standing between civilization and barbarity.

And so a curtain shall be drawn over that extraordinary chapter in British politics, no mention of how Blair’s purchase of Sinn Fein laid the basis for his post prime ministerial career, and fortune-making, as the world’s great peace-maker.

Instead a new version has been forged, with the powerless, but possibly naive, Mr Corbyn cast in the role of the true villain regarding the indulging of Sinn Fein, and Tony Blair written out of the story.

How convenient.

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