Jeremy Corbyn is the most radical Labour leader in the party's history.

The veteran left-winger does not merely advocate a return to 1970s-style socialism, the re-opening of the mines and nationalisation of all public utilities.

Mr Corbyn also opposes Nato, Britain's nuclear deterrent and any controls on immigration.

He refused to support the Falklands War, backed the right of Iraqi insurgents to target British troops and, more recently, has defended Vladimir Putin, ISIS and Palestinian terrorists.

His views are so hard-line he even split with his second wife because she refused to send her child to the failing local state school in his constituency.

Michael Foot, who led the Labour party to its worst post war defeat in 1983, was never so far from public opinion – even supporting Margaret Thatcher's re-taking of the Falkland Islands in 1982.

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The strident left-winger has spent his entire political career away from the frontline, more often attending protests and demonstrations, including this march by teachers in London in 2002

Since emerging as the frontrunner to win the leadership, Mr Corbyn's views have come under intense scrutiny.

A critic of New Labour, the hard-Left MP for Islington North has rebelled against his party 533 times since 1997, according to the Parliamentary voting record website The Public Whip.

When a notebook was mislaid by a member of the Whips' Office in 2002, Mr Corbyn was reportedly seen to have been described in it as 'Jeremy Cor Bin-Laden'.

An anti-monarchist, he once petitioned Tony Blair to move the entire Royal Family out of Buckingham Palace and into a 'more modest' dwelling.

He also wore a bright red blazer in the Commons during the eulogies to the Queen Mother in 2002.

In 1996, he was accused of 'traitorous' behaviour for helping Sinn Fein boss Gerry Adams plug his autobiography inside the Houses of Parliament.

Just this week it emerged Mr Corbyn had attended a conference in Cairo during the Iraq war which called on Iraqis to attack British troops. During the Iraq war, 179 British soldiers died. Mr Corbyn denies any claim he supported attacks on British troops.

Mr Corbyn joined George Galloway (centre left) and protesters at a midnight vigil against the bombing of Iraq opposite Downing Street in 1998

Mr Corbyn opposed the war, and was at the time on the steering committee of the Stop the War organisation which he now chairs.

The Cairo Conference produced a declaration in which delegates committed to support 'resistance against the occupation forces with all legitimate means, including military struggle'.

Mr Corbyn has also been repeatedly questioned about his associations with Islamist extremists and Holocaust deniers, and comparing Western foreign policy with terrorism.

Last month Mr Corbyn lost his temper during a radio interview when asked why he hosted an event with Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Lebanese-born firebrand who celebrated the killing of British soldiers in Iraq.

Mr Corbyn claimed he had never met him, despite pictures of them sitting side by side in Parliament in 2009. Mr Jahjah ran a radical group called the Arab European League in Belgium, where he lived for many years.

In 1996, Mr Corbyn was accused of 'traitorous' behaviour for helping Sinn Fein boss Gerry Adams plug his autobiography inside the Houses of Parliament

Old friends: Mr Corbyn (right) pictured in 1983 with Ken Livingstone (left) and Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams

At the height of the Iraq conflict he told a Flemish newspaper he 'saluted' the deaths of Western troops.

A video then emerged of Mr Corbyn equating the actions of Isis with those of the US military, and saying that 'some of what they have done is quite appalling.'

It later emerged that he had told Iranian television in 2011 that the death of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was a 'tragedy'.

A spokesperson for Mr Corbyn said: 'Jeremy was opposed to the Iraq war and to the loss of 179 British soldiers. No lives should have been lost.