Victims’ campaigner slams Frankie Boyle over joke about IRA killing politicians

Kenny Donaldson, spokesman for Innocent Victims United, said the joke about the IRA killing politicians was not funny and only served to “diminish the evils and ongoing legacy of terrorism”.

Making reference to Theresa May’s recent meeting with leading Brexiteer Conservative politicians at Chequers, Mr Boyle joked: “Where the f*** are the IRA when you need them?”

He added: “All these groups that keep getting back together. What about the guys that would really help us?”

Tory peer Lord Tebbit, who was injured in the 1984 Brighton bomb, described the comment as “highly offensive” and said Mr Boyle should be banned from broadcasting on the BBC.

“IRA terrorist attacks are no laughing matter and the BBC shouldn’t have him on television,” he told the Belfast Telegraph.

The joke about the IRA killing politicians also drew criticism from DUP MP Gregory Campbell and UUP MLA Doug Beattie MC.

Mr Donaldson said: “Politicians are people too – Sir Anthony Berry, Edgar Graham, Airey Neave, Robert Bradford, Sir Norman Stronge and Ian Gow had their lives stolen from them by the evils of Republican terrorism.

“These individuals were slaughtered because they dared to stand against the ‘ourselves alone’ fascism of the Republican Movement and many others politicians and their families were maimed.

“The IRA are not an old boys club, they are not the Republican equivalent of the Royal British Legion, they were and will remain a death cult who have ravaged the people of these islands. They murdered 15 innocents across mainland Europe and they have exported terror to many areas of our troubled world – Colombia, Palestine, Spain et al.

“Frankie Boyle is part of the problem and the BBC cannot simply wash its hands of responsibility for the messaging communicated which is having the impact of diminishing the evils and ongoing legacy of terrorism.”

Defending the content of Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, a BBC spokesperson said: “Frankie Boyle’s New World Order was shown after 10pm on BBC Two and its content is within audience expectations for a post-watershed, topical, satirical programme from a comedian whose style and tone are well-established. Within the same programme, Frankie clearly acknowledges the brutality of the IRA’s activities.”

Meanwhile, a man claiming to have been the victim of an IRA bomb attack in the early 1970s contacted BBC Radio Ulster’s Nolan Show this morning to defend Frankie Boyle.

The man identified as ‘George from Ballynahinch’ said he found the joke funny.

Stressing that he has sympathy for other victims, he said: “Laughter has helped me as an individual bring a closure to the past. It has helped me live a better life.

“I found the joke very funny and I laughed wholeheartedly at it.”