JEREMY Corbyn told a rally that Islamic State was “not a great threat to the UK” in the hours following the release of a horrific video showing a British aid worker being beheaded by Jihadi John.
Mr Corbyn told a hard-left Stop the War rally that UK foreign policy was to blame for the death of taxi driver turned aid worker rather than the threat of IS, a day after the footage of his brutal murder was broadcast for the world to see.
Alan Henning, from Salford, left the UK and travelled to Syria as an aid worker in 2013.
The release of the shocking footage of his murder by Mohammed Emwazi, the IS soldier nicknamed Jihadi John because of his four-man British IS cell called The Beatles, was followed by Mr Corbyn, saying on October 4, 2014, a day after the video was released, that Islamic State was not a huge threat.
Mr Henning was murdered a year prior to the release of the film, and Emwazi became one of the central symbols of the hate bred by IS across the world.
David Cameron issued a “kill or capture” order for the British jihadist, and he was killed in a US-British drone strike on November 12, 2015.
Mr Corbyn blamed “jingoism” and British foreign policy at the hard-left Stop the War Coalition rally in central London instead of IS. He said Mr Henning’s murder was the “price” of British intervention.
‘We have to remember that the price of war, the price of intervention, the price of jingoism, is somebody else’s son, and somebody else’s daughter, being killed,’ he said.
Following his speech, he told the Turkish-based Anadolu news Agency IS was not the real threat.
“I think ISIL [Islamic State] is not a great threat to the UK. I think the bigger threat to the UK is our continuing involvement in wars all around the world,” he said.
Around 900 IS recruits were British at the time of Mr Corbyn’s comments.
Former Labour minister and chair of anti-extremist group Mainstream UK Ian Austin said he is “scared” of a Corbyn government.
“He’s not fit to lead the Labour Party and not fit to be Prime Minister. That’s why me and millions of other lifelong Labour voters will vote to keep him out this Thursday,” Mr Austin said.
As those caught up in IS’ reign of terror celebrated the end of leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s wrath, after he blew himself and his children up with a suicide belt as US special forces closed in on him, Mr Corbyn said he should have been arrested.
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