Former MI6 boss labels Jeremy Corbyn a danger to national security unfit to lead the country

The former boss of MI6 has labelled Jeremy Corbyn a danger to national security and said he is unfit to lead the country.



Sir Richard Dearlove accused the Labour leader of becoming a “present danger to our country” if he was elected Prime Minister and granted access to top-secret documents.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday the ex-spy chief said bluntly: “Do not even think of taking the risk of handing this politician the keys to No 10.”

Mr Dearlove, who spent 38 years with the intelligence service, said Mr Corbyn and his two key aides Andrew Murray and Seumas Milne “have at times each denigrated their own country and embraced the interests of its enemies and opponents”.

He wrote: “The political company they have kept has been authoritatively documented.

“For example, none of them would ever have been allowed to work in our national security agencies because they would have been disqualified.

“They would all have failed to pass their security vetting.”

Sir Richard said: “We are faced with the possibility that a leader of the Labour Party who once preferred East Germany’s political and economic model of government, could become Prime Minister.

“Corbyn, Murray and Milne are compromised by their past. Their record is not in question."

He said: “As a democratically elected leader he would bypass the vetting procedures. Corbyn as Prime Minister, together with his current advisers, could be a present danger to our country.”

Mr Murray, who advises the Labour leader on policy, was a former member of Britain’s Communist Party.

Mr Dearlove added: “When vital national security interests are at stake, the political facts of his past cannot be airbrushed out.

“Politicians should have to live with their political record, and Corbyn’s, whatever political views he may claim to hold today, rules him out as someone suitable to be our Prime Minister.”

The former MI6 chief has been a frequent critic of the Labour leader, saying last year he was “troubled by Jeremy Corbyn’s past associations”.

At the time John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor and a close ally of Mr Corbyn, called Sir Richard was “a reactionary member of the establishment”.