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Top Labour frontbencher Hilary Benn has issued a thinly-veiled rebuke to Jeremy Corbyn over his call for “back channel” routes to be opened with Islamic State.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary dismissed suggestions talks could be held with the terrorists in a bid to bring peace to war-ravaged Syria.

The rebuff will be seen as a deepening of the rift between Mr Benn and his party leader.

Asked on Sunday if Britain should be talking to IS in the same way UK officials opened back channels to the IRA and Taliban, Mr Corbyn said: “The British government maintained a channel to the IRA all through the Troubles.

“I don’t condemn them for that. I don’t condemn them for keeping a back channel to Taliban.”

(Image: BBC)

He added: “Dialogue is perhaps the wrong word to use.

“I think there has to be some understanding of where their (IS's) strong points are, where their weak points are and how we can challenge their ideology.”

But Mr Benn rejected calls for talks with the murderous extremists who have rampaged across Iraq and Syria.

“I don't think there's much to negotiate with Daesh about, unless someone is going to take a different view,” he said pointedly.

“I don't see what there is to negotiate about when it comes to Daesh. There isn't.”

The comments, to a Fabian Society meeting in Westminster, will be seen as fresh evidence of a damaging division at the top of Labour.

Mr Corbyn wanted to sack the Shadow Foreign Secretary in his new year reshuffle, but abandoned the bid after warnings it would trigger a host of frontbench resignations.

Mr Benn and Mr Corbyn were split in December over whether to extend RAF strikes against IS into Syria, with the Labour leader forced to watch as Mr Benn earned rare Commons applause as he backed widening bombing raids, in defiance of his boss.

(Image: Getty)

They are also divided over renewing Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent, which Mr Corbyn wants to scrap.

The row is set to burst into the open in the spring, when MPs are expected to vote on replacing the Royal Navy's four Vanguard-class submarines.

Labour is carrying out a review of its defence policy, including Trident.

(Image: PA)

But Mr Benn warned: “When it comes to defence policy, the fundamental responsibility of government - and oppositions aspire to be in government – is to defend the nation.

“That is the most important responsibility we have got and we will see that played out during the course of the defence review.”

And writing in Fabian pamphlet Outward to the World, Mr Benn insisted: “If Labour is to become the party of government again, voters need to clear that we will stand up for British interests and our values abroad.”

The UK could not expect allies to shoulder the burden of protecting Britain, he added.

(Image: PA)

“British foreign policy over the last decade as been conducted in the long shadow of the 2003 invasion of Iraq,” wrote Mr Benn.

“Our foreign policy must learn the lessons of that conflict, but not be shackled by it.

“It should not be a reason to retreat from the world and our responsibilities in it, or to rely on others to fight for us.”