Keir Starmer Demands Boris Johnson Blocks Claire Fox's Peerage After IRA Row
Boris Johnson should block former Brexit MEP Claire Fox from being given a seat in the House of Lords rather than accuse Keir Starmer of being silent over support for the IRA, Labour has said.
In angry exchanges during PMQs on Wednesday, the prime minister accused the Labour leader of having “supported an IRA-condoning politician” when Jeremy Corbyn led the party.
Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, demanded Johnson withdraw the comment.
“When the prime minister has worked with the intelligence and security forces prosecuting criminals and terrorists he can lecture me,” he said.
Following the exchanges, a spokesperson for Starmer said: “One thing we would remind the prime minister is that he has the power to block Claire Fox being nominated as a member of the House of Lords.
“So if he wants to take any action on this issue we suggest he does that.”
Fox was recently handed a peerage by Johnson. Before signing up to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in 2019, she was a leading of member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).
On March 20, 1993, an IRA bombing in Warrington killed Tim Parry, 12, and Jonathan Ball, three, and injured 56 others.
The RCP defended the bombing and the “the right of the Irish people to take whatever measures necessary in their struggle for freedom”.
Tim Parry’s father, Colin Parry, said at the time that offering a peerage to Fox “offends me and many others deeply”.
We all do and say things when young that we later regret. @clairefox never apologised for defending the IRA bombing of Warrington which took the life of my son Tim and Johnathan Ball. Now she is offered a Peerage. This offends me and many others deeply
— Colin Parry OBE (@ColinParryPeace) August 1, 2020
Fox has previously said she has the “greatest sympathy” for the Parry family but has not gone as far as apologising.
“My personal politics and views are well known and I have never sought to disguise them, though on this issue they have...
