Jeremy Corbyn today insisted that mass-murdering ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi should have been arrested – despite the fact that the terrorist leader blew himself and two of his children up as US soldiers approached.
The anti-war Labour leader questioned the US operation last month that led to the cornered Islamist warlord, whose victims included innocent Britons, triggering a suicide vest.
‘If we want to live in a world of peace and justice we should practice it as well’, Mr Corbyn said in an interview with LBC on the election campaign trail.
The comments came hours after Mr Corbyn’s two-day general election tour of Scotland got off to a disastrous start as he was heckled and labelled a ‘terrorist sympathiser’ when he arrived at an event in Glasgow.
And they echo remarks made by the Labour leader in 2011, when he described the recent US killing of Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as a ‘tragedy’.
Donald Trump announced last month that al-Baghdadi ‘died like a dog’ as the result of a US Special Ops forces raid on his hideout in northwest Syria.
Asked about al-Baghdadi’s death by LBC, Mr Corbyn said that ‘him being removed from the scene is a very good thing’.
But he added: ‘If it would have been possible to arrest him, I don’t know the details of the circumstances at the time.
‘I have only seen various statements put out by the US about it, surely that would have been the right thing to do.’
Tory Security Minister Brandon Lewis said: ‘Corbyn’s comments are yet more proof of his flawed judgement and inability to stand up to people who reject our values.
‘If we want to live in a world of peace and justice we should practice it as well’, Mr Corbyn said in an interview with LBC on the election campaign trail (pictured today in Glasgow)
Donald Trump announced last month that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ‘died like a dog’ as the result of a US Special Ops forces raid on his hideout in northwest Syria
‘Every time he is given the opportunity to take the side of this country’s enemies he does so.
‘In one month, Britain could wake up to find him standing on the steps of Downing Street as our Prime Minister.’
Tory election candidate Michael Fabricant added: ‘So easy. ”Well, Mr al-Baghdadi, we understand you are the military leader of ISIS. Please accompany me to the nearest police station.” What planet is Jeremy Corbyn on?’
Responding to Mr Corbyn’s suggestion al-Baghdadi should have been detained, Conservative candidate Andrew Bridgen told MailOnline: ‘Doing that may have put the lives of the soldiers in danger.
‘He is responsible for some of the most heinous crimes committed by Islamic State, many of which against UK citizens.
‘This is reinforcing what we already know about Mr Corbyn. He has an inexplicable friendly attitude to terrorists and a history of it.’
Mr Corbyn defended his remarks about Bin Laden, adding: ‘If we preach international law and international legal process through the International Court of Justice in The Hague then we should carry it out.
‘And if it’s possible to arrest somebody and put them on trial, then that is what should have been done and that is what I said about the death in 2011 and it would continue to be my principle.
‘If we believe, as we do, in international law and justice and the power of the International Court of Justice, then we should everything we can to bring people, where they deserve to go on trial, to be put on trial as was Milosevic and others.’
According to the US, Al-Baghdadi detonated his suicide vest, killing himself and his children, during an overnight targeted attack in Syria’s Idlib province.
President Trump touted the operation and al-Baghdadi’s death as ‘bigger than bin Laden.’
Bin Laden, founder of Al-Qaeda and the terrorist leader behind the September 11 terrorist attacks, was killed in 2011 during a Navy SEALs operation during Barack Obama’s presidency.
Earlier the Labour leader was conducting an interview with a TV reporter when Richard Cameron, the minister at Scotstoun Parish Church in the city, interrupted him.
Addressing Mr Corbyn, who was wearing a tartan scarf, he said: ‘I thought you would be wearing your Islamic jihad scarf… do you think the man that is going to be prime minister of this country should be a terrorist sympathiser, Mr Corbyn?
‘Who is going to be the first terrorist invited to the House of Commons when you are prime minister?’
Mr Corbyn appeared to be taken by surprise by the comments as he was quickly escorted into the Heart of Scotstoun community centre by Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard.
That prompted Reverend Cameron to shout after him: ‘Aye, he is running away.’
Mr Corbyn’s record as a Labour backbench MP was heavily scrutinised during the 2017 general election and when he ran for the party leadership.
He once described members of the Islamist terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah as ‘friends’ ahead of a planned meeting in Parliament in 2009.
In 2016 he said he regretted using the word but insisted he had done so to encourage ‘there to be a discussion about the peace process’ in the Middle East.
Asked if he still regarded the groups as ‘friends’, he told the Home Affairs Select Committee at the time: ‘No.
‘It was inclusive language I used which with hindsight I would rather not have used. I regret using those words, of course.’
In 2015 TV footage emerged showing the Labour leader criticising the killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist in a raid by US special forces.
He told Iranian national television, shortly after bin Laden was shot four years previously, that the 9/11 mastermind should not have received the ‘death penalty’, but should have been put on trial.
Failure to do so, Mr Corbyn said, was ‘a tragedy upon a tragedy’, after the World Trade Center attacks, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Corbyn has also been repeatedly criticised for meeting the leaders of Sinn Fein in the 1980s and 1990s when the IRA was still conducting a terror campaign against the UK.
He also invited two convicted IRA volunteers to the House of Commons in October 1984 two weeks after an IRA bomb killed five people at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton.
It came as Labour’s stance on a Scottish independence referendum descended into turmoil today after Mr Corbyn ruled out a vote before 2024 – only to be contradicted by his own aides.
The veteran left-wing caused confusion on a visit to Glasgow by declaring that there would be no ballot on splitting the UK before the next election.
But the comments were at odds with Labour’s previous position, which was that it will not stand in the way of a re-run of the 2014 poll.
Nicola Sturgeon has made granting permission for another referendum a red line for propping up Mr Corbyn in power if there is a hung Parliament after December 12.
In an humiliation for Mr Corbyn, aides swiftly backtracked and said Labour could allow a referendum if the SNP wins a majority in Holyrood elections in May 2021.
In an interview in Glasgow, Mr Corbyn said: ‘No referendum in the first term for a Labour government because I think we need to concentrate completely in investment across Scotland.’
Jeremy Corbyn was heckled as he arrived at an election campaign event in Glasgow this morning
In 2015 TV footage emerged showing the Labour leader criticising the killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist in a raid by US special forces
Mr Corbyn met with Sinn Fein chief Gerry Adams in Parliament in 1995 when the former was a Labour backbencher
Boris Johnson looks at the frame of an electric taxi during his Conservative party general election campaign visit to the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) in Coventry today
Pressed if it would be undemocratic to decline a ballot if the SNP wins a majority of Scotland’s Westminster seats on December 12, he said: ‘If the SNP win the majority of seats that’s the election of those MPs.
‘I’m very clear that a Labour government’s priority is investment in Scotland.’
But afterwards aides made it clear that Labour’s position could shift if the SNP secures a majority in Holyrood in 2021.
Meanwhile, Labour’s plan to introduce a four day working week was plunged into chaos as shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said it would not apply to NHS staff – but John McDonnell insisted it would.
Mr Ashworth appeared to water down the policy this morning as he said there would be a ‘commission and a review in 10 years’ time looking at’ the viability of a shorter working week.
His remarks put him on a collision course with the shadow chancellor who announced the overhaul of working conditions at Labour’s annual conference in September and said it would be achieved ‘within the next decade’.
The shadow chancellor said at the time: ‘The next Labour government will put in place the changes needed to reduce average full-time hours to 32 a week within the next decade.’
Asked if the NHS would be included in Labour’s plan, Mr Ashworth said this morning: ‘No. It is not happening. There is not a four day week coming in the NHS.’
But just hours later at a campaign event alongside Mr Ashworth, Mr McDonnell reportedly said the four day week policy ‘will apply to everybody’.
The extraordinary split at the top of the Labour Party came after the Tories claimed Labour’s NHS spending plans would actually represent a budget cut for the health service.
Jeremy Corbyn wins Communist Party backing: Far Left party says vote Labour to see off Nigel Farage and end austerity – but the pro-Brexit Reds warn that remaining in the EU could lead to political ‘sabotage’ by Brussels
In a statement on its website, general secretary Robert Griffiths said it backed a Labour government
The Communist Party of Britain urged its supporters to back Jeremy Corbyn today, saying that only a Labour government could see off Nigel Farage.
The Hard Left outfit, which is believed to have less than 1,000 members nationwide, urged them to back the opposition leader, saying a Labour government would ‘end austerity and privatisation’.
But the pro-Brexit Reds also issued a warning to the left-wing opposition leader that staying in the EU after the election left it open to ‘sabotage’ from free market interests in Brussels.
In a statement on its website, general secretary Robert Griffiths said: ‘It is entirely in keeping with Nigel Farage’s right-wing political history that he wants the Tories to win the General Election.
‘But his decision also exposes the vulnerability of Labour’s move towards an anti-Brexit position, having dropped its pledge to honour the EU referendum result and adopted a second referendum instead.
The Hard Left outfit, which is believed to have less than 1,000 members nationwide, urged them to back Mr Corbyn (pictured today in Scotland)
‘Only a Labour government with its left and progressive policies will end austerity and privatisation, although it would quickly discover that EU rules on competition, state aid, public procurement, the corporate right of establishment and the free movement of capital will be used in attempts to sabotage Labour’s programme’.
Mr Corbyn has links with the Communist Party. One of his senior aides, Andrew Murray, was a member
In September the group called for ‘all socialists, progressives, trade unionists, Greens and Scottish and Welsh nationalists’ to stand aside and back Mr Corbyn’s Labour party.
It decided not to stand at the next election. But in a statement it said: ‘Nevertheless, the CP will continue to oppose Britain’s membership of the European Union, recognising that the treaties, rules, directives and policies of the EU are designed to protect big business interests and their capitalist markets against any advance towards socialism in any EU member state.
‘Like most Communist and workers’ parties across Europe, the Communist Party of Britain understands that the EU has also been designed to be unreformable as a construction to defend and promote capitalism and is now developing a military dimension in order to promote the common interests of Europe’s main imperialist powers.
‘Therefore, the CP reiterates its demand for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU in accordance with the result of the June 2016 referendum, on terms which enable future governments to engage in commerce and make trade agreements which mutually benefit the workers and peoples of Britain and other countries.’
Boris Johnson will today pledge to get Britain ‘out of the rut’ of the last three years by delivering Brexit and triggering a green revolution, in his first major speech of the election campaign.
The Prime Minister will hammer home his central message that only a Conservative majority can ‘end the Brexit groundhoggery’.
But he will also paint a picture of a brighter future, saying that delivering Brexit will allow the country to ‘unleash Britain’s potential’.
Mr Johnson will also hit out at Jeremy Corbyn in his characteristically colourful language, accusing the Labour leader of ‘political self-obsession and onanism’ – an 18th Century term for masturbation.
The Prime Minister will claim that as well as a second Brexit referendum, Corbyn will grant the SNP a grant Scottish independence referendum, which he will blast as ‘an expense of spirit and a waste of shame, more political self-obsession and onanism’.
In addition, Mr Johnson will call for a ‘clean energy revolution’ after Britain has left the EU. Talking at an electric vehicle plant in the West Midlands, he is set to announce fresh plans for boosting take-up across the country.
However, with a month to go until polling day, Mr Johnson will focus his message on the key Brexit choice facing voters.