Western leaders who started the War on Terror are the biggest criminals of the 21st Century, a senior Jeremy Corbyn aide tonight said.
Andrew Murray raged against the alliance – led by Tony Blair and George Bush – which hit back after Al Qaeda killed thousands in the 9/11 attacks.
And he said that the wars in the Middle East and north Africa which the UK has supported since has made the West the biggest criminal of the past two decades – worse than ISIS and Al Qaeda.
He did not mention Mr Blair or Mr Bush by name – but his remarks will be seen as an excoriating attack on the former Labour PM and US leader.
He made the shock comments at a Stop the War Coalition fringe event at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool tonight.
Andrew Murray (stock picture) raged against the British-backed alliance which hit back after Al Qaeda killed thousands in the 9/11 attacks
Mr Murray, who is chief of staff to the Unite union but is currently seconded to the Labour leader’s office, said: ‘We are still mired in the 17-year-old War on Terror that has rolled from one country to another destroying millions of lives, wrecking societies.
‘It is time that a government in Britain had the courage to stand up and say, enough is enough, we are not fighting this any more.’
Mr Murray added: ‘This war has been a calamity, a calamity for humanity. The people that authored it are guilty in my view of the greatest crime of this century to date.’
He also tore into the intervention in Libya, saying: ‘We’ve seen what has happened in Libya. That was supposed to be a good war, David Cameron’s good war.
‘Now we have this dreadful migrant crisis with thousands of people drowning in the Mediterranean every week largely as a result of that war.’
Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in Liverpool today) – a lifelong pacifist – used to be the chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, but stepped down. Many of his close parliamentary allies addressed today’s meeting where they called for Trident to be scrapped and an anti-war government to be ushered in
A series of Labour frontbenchers and close allies of Mr Corbyn queued up to address the packed fringe meeting and rail against war.
Mr Murray said that a Corbyn government will be an ‘anti war government’ – a pledge echoed by several Labour MPs.
Chris Wlliamson – a close ally of Mr Corbyn in Parliament – said that he is opposed to Britain’s nuclear deterrent Trident and believed the Labour leader would never ‘push the button’ in a war.
While shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon lashed many of his fellow Labour MPs who have defended Britain’s role as a military power.
He told the meeting that ‘there are some Labour MPs who are intensely relaxed about the UK being a weapons supermarket for Saudi Arabia’.
But he said that as a ‘supporter of lifelong education’ he is confident they will one day abandon their views and sign up to the Corbyn anti-war vision.
Mr Corbyn – a lifelong pacifist – used to be the chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, but stepped down.
However, many of his closest political allies remain intertwined with the group, which was set up 17 years ago and has marched against military action ever since.