Tory MP accuses top US politician of being IRA sympathiser

Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg said Mr Kerry “held up” an extradition treaty which would have allowed prosecution of the activists in Northern Ireland, claiming the province’s justice system does not work effectively.

The North East Somerset MP said Mr Kerry was “no friend of Britain” and urged MPs to ignore his comments stating the UK has a “profound interest” in staying in the EU.

Intervening during the second reading of the EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “The person representing the United States government who has called for us to stay is John Kerry, a former senator, who in the 1980s showed himself to be no friend of the United Kingdom but a sympathiser with the IRA, when he held up a treaty allowing for the deportation of IRA activists from the United States to the Untied Kingdom, saying that the justice system in Northern Ireland didn’t work effectively.

“He is no friend of Britain and has been in the past a sympathiser with terrorists.”