Fury over peerage for former MEP who won’t apologise for support of the IRA

Deputy leader Angela Rayner said the move to send Claire Fox to the House of Lords “is an insult” over the bombing of the Cheshire town in 1993.

Ms Fox was most recently a Brexit Party representative in Brussels, but was formerly a senior activist in the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).

An RCP newsletter at the time of the attack, which killed schoolboys Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball, stated that the party defended “the right of the Irish people to take whatever measures necessary in their struggle for freedom”.

Though Ms Fox has said she does not condone violence, she has not apologised for the position at the time.

Now she will head to the Lords after being included on a 36-strong peerage list that led to allegations of cronyism against the Prime Minister after he included his brother, Jo Johnson, and a number of Brexit backers.

Ms Rayner said Boris Johnson would be showing “doesn’t care about the victims and survivors of terrorism” if he does not block the peerage.

“The awarding of a life peerage to someone who has repeatedly refused to apologise for her support of the heinous IRA bombing attack in Warrington in 1993 has rightly caused revulsion and real hurt both in Warrington and across our region,” she said.

“The Prime Minister is showing crass insensitivity to the families of those who lost their lives in 1993 and countless others whose lives were changed forever that day, and as a result of the IRA attack in Manchester city centre in 1996.”

Ms Fox has not responded to a request for comment on Labour’s criticism, but has addressed the allegations in the past.

“Terrible things happened – mercifully a peaceful resolution has emerged following the Good Friday Agreement,” she has said.

“I do not condone the use of violence.”

Tim’s father Colin Parry said the peerage “offends me and many others deeply”.

Downing Street did not comment on Ms Rayner’s call but Tory MP Richard Holden did criticise her for supporting the previous Labour leader.

“It is the height of hypocrisy for Angela Rayner to lecture us when she spent five years urging the British people to put our national security in the hands of Jeremy Corbyn – a man who sided with those who sought to do us harm time after time,” the backbencher said.