Theresa May lashed out at Jeremy Corbyn tonight for making 'excuses' for terrorists after he linked UK foreign policy to the Manchester bombing.

The Prime Minister accused the Labour leader of saying terror attacks are 'our own fault' and condemned him for delivering the controversial speech just four days after the atrocity.

Mrs May said while she had been working with G7 leaders at a summit in Sicily, Mr Corbyn had shown he was 'not fit' to be in charge of the country.

'I want to be very clear about what has been said today,' Mrs May told a press conference at the summit.

'I have been here at the G7 working with other international leaders to fight terrorism.

'At the same time Jeremy Corbyn has said that terror attacks are our own fault.

'He has chosen to do that just a few days after one of the worst terror atrocities we have seen.'

She added: 'There can be no excuse for terrorism. There can be no excuse for what happened in Manchester.'

Theresa May said while she had been working with G7 leaders at a summit in Sicily today, Mr Corbyn had shown he was 'not fit' to be in charge of the country

Mrs May was speaking at a press conference as she prepared to leave the gathering of world leaders tonight

The brutal rebuke came after the Labour leader claimed that Britain's foreign policy in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria had 'fuelled terrorism'.

Senior Tories branded the timing - with funerals yet to take place and the injured still being treated in hospital - 'monstrous' and 'appalling'.

They accused the veteran left-winger of 'buying into the terrorist narrative', pointing out that attacks by Islamist extremists long pre-dated the military campaigns.

Dismayed Labour politicians also openly admitted the speech was 'badly timed' and muddle-headed. They said terrorists hated the UK for 'what we are' not 'what we do'.

The Labour leader, a long-time member of the Stop The War Campaign and CND, used the speech in central London today to claim successive governments have put the country at risk by sending troops to fight Islamic State and other extremists abroad.

Mr Corbyn - who has made clear that UK forces will no longer take part in action against ISIS in Syria and Iraq if he becomes PM - said he would only deploy troops if there was a 'clear plan' to bring about peace.

He has previously stated that the last UK combat operation he agreed with was the Second World War.

The Labour leader is facing a furious backlash after using his speech to criticise UK foreign policy just four days after the Manchester suicide bombing

Mr Corbyn was flanked by shadow home secretary Diane Abbott (right) and shadow attorney general Baroness Chakrabarti before the speech today

Labour moderate John Woodcock tweeted to insist that terrorists 'hate' Britain for 'who we are not what we do'

'No government can prevent every terrorist attack – if an individual is determined enough and callous enough, sometimes they will get through,' he said.

'But the responsibility of government is to minimise that chance – to ensure the police have the resources they need, that our foreign policy reduces rather than increases the threat to this country and that at home we never surrender the freedoms we have won and that terrorists are so determined to take away.'

Mr Corbyn, who has suggested he would bring home all British soldiers from abroad, linked military interventions in other countries with atrocities by jihadists in the UK.

He said the policies abroad 'fuel' terrorism.

'An informed understanding of the causes of terrorism is an essential part of an effective response that will protect the security of our people, that fights rather than fuels terrorism,' he said.

'Protecting this country requires us to be both strong against terrorism and strong against the causes of terrorism.

'The blame is with the terrorists, but if we are to protect our people we must be honest about what threatens our security.

'Those causes certainly cannot be reduced to foreign policy decisions alone.

'Over the past fifteen years or so, a sub-culture of often suicidal violence has developed amongst a tiny minority of, mainly young, men, falsely drawing authority from Islamic beliefs and often nurtured in a prison system in urgent need of resources and reform.

Mr Corbyn, pictured giving his speech today, linked military interventions in other countries with atrocities by jihadists in the UK

The Labour leader, arriving for his speech today, claimed that Britain's foreign policy had heightened the risk of attacks on home soil

While Mr Corbyn makes his speech criticising the UK's foreign policy, Theresa May was attending the G7 summit in Sicily with leaders including France's Emmanuel Macron

Foreign Secretary Mr Johnson said the Labour leader's position was 'absolutely monstrous'

'And no rationale based on the actions of any government can remotely excuse, or even adequately explain, outrages like this week's massacre.

'But we must be brave enough to admit the war on terror is simply not working.

'We need a smarter way to reduce the threat from countries that nurture terrorists and generate terrorism.'

He added: 'Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home.'

LABOUR EX-MP WARNS THAT CORBYN IS 'NOT A LEADER' Former MP Glenda Jackson has given a withering assessment of said Jeremy Corbyn - saying he is 'not a leader'. The 81-year-old ex-actress, who served as MP for Hampstead in north London for more than two decades before retiring in 2015, said she had 'serious doubts' about the Labour leader's chances in the election. She said: 'When I left, I wrote to Jeremy and said that I would back him on the ballot paper as we always had to have a left-wing representative, but never could I vote for him as leader. 'I don't think he really believes in leadership, does he?' She told the Camden New Journal newspaper this week: 'I have to say, one of the biggest problems at this election, and it hurts me to say this, is Jeremy on the doorstep.' Speaking about the Labour leader's promise to put more cash into public services, she said she agreed with him - but queried whether the country could afford it. She said: 'Wouldn't it be wonderful - but can we afford it? I have serious doubts about some of the re-nationalisations.' She also said that Tory leader Theresa May seemed to be a 'grown-up, which is quite a rarity on the British political scene'. Advertisement

Mr Corbyn insisted he was not making a 'narrow political point'.

Explaining his decision to deliver the controversial speech so soon after the bombing, Mr Corbyn said: 'Our General Election campaigns are the centrepieces of our democracy – the moment all our people get to exercise their sovereign authority over their representatives.

'Rallies, debates, campaigning in the marketplaces, knocking on doors, listening to people on the streets, at their workplaces and in their homes – all the arts of peaceful persuasion and discussion - are the stuff of our campaigns.

'They all remind us that our government is not chosen at an autocrats' whim or by religious decree and never cowed by a terrorist's bomb.

'Indeed, carrying on as normal is an act of defiance – democratic defiance – of those who do reject our commitment to democratic freedoms.'

Describing the speech as 'inappropriate and crassly timed', Mr Wallace told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We have to be unequivocal, that no amount of excuses, no amount of twisted reasoning about a foreign policy here, a foreign policy there, can be an excuse. The reality is, these people hate our values.

'The way to see that off is not to feed excuses, not to allow these people - that right now our police are trying to find - to give them any cause to think: Well I'm slightly justified.

'They are not justified. In this country it's democracy, the rule of law, equality that we stand for and we absolutely reject terrorism - and so should Jeremy Corbyn - on all fronts.'

Cabinet ministers Boris Johnson and Sir Michael Fallon added to the Tory attack on Mr Corbyn.

Foreign Secretary Mr Johnson said the Labour leader's position was 'absolutely monstrous' and it was 'absolutely extraordinary and inexplicable in this week of all weeks that there should be any attempt to justify or to legitimate the actions of terrorists in this way'.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael told Sky News the 'ill-judged' speech had 'implied that this attack might be our fault, might be Britain's fault, might be the fault of our foreign policy'.

'This attack was clearly planned and carried out by a terrorist, it was the terrorist's fault and we shouldn't get away from that,' Sir Michael said.

'We should remember that at every stage of his political career, Jeremy Corbyn has been soft on terrorism. He has voted against terrorism legislation, he has even said the RAF shouldn't be prepared to strike terrorist targets in Iraq or Syria.'

Mr Wallace, who has responsibility for counter-terrorism matters, criticised Mr Corbyn's grasp of the issues, told BBC Breakfast: 'He needs to get his history book out, to be brutally honest.'

He added: 'These people hate our values, it's not our foreign policy they go to war with us about.'

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: 'A few days ago, a young man built a bomb, walked into a pop concert and deliberately slaughtered children. Our children. Families are grieving. A community is in shock.

'Jeremy Corbyn has chosen to use that grotesque act to make a political point. I don't agree with what he says, but I disagree even more that now is the time to say it.

'That's not leadership, it's putting politics before people at a time of tragedy.'

Mr Corbyn, pictured at the event in central London today, insisted he was not making a 'narrow political point'

Neil Coyle, who is defending the Bermondsey seat for Labour, said Mr Corbyn's analysis was 'badly timed' and did not 'stack up'

Senior Labour figure Mike Gapes, a former chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, said Islamic State terrorists 'hate us for what we are', not 'for what we do'.

'Our foreign policy is used as justification for their crimes. It is not the reason,' he said.

Neil Coyle, who is defending the Bermondsey seat for Labour, told Sky News: 'Personally I think this intervention is badly timed, and I just struggle to see the analysis.

'It certainly wouldn't explain why Nigeria is under attack, Sweden has been attacked, and Paris has been attacked when France opposed some of the UK interventions. So the analysis – it doesn't sound like it stacks up.

He added that the Corbyn view of the world did not explain the Westminster terror attack.

'That doesn't explain why Adrian from Kent attacked Westminster,' he said. 'There is no correlation, there is no excuse, there is no connection, and to follow that path would be to fail to work out how best to intervene and best to protect UK citizens and prevent further attacks, in particular those from British born civilians who want to attack others in our own country.'

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, pictured campaigning in Edinburgh today, said she had agreed with Mr Corbyn over Iraq, but argued that terrorists would always find a reason for atrocities

Tory candidate Johnny Mercer, a former soldier said Mr Corbyn was 'buying into the terrorist narrative'.

He said sometimes actions could be exploited by extremists for their own ends.

But Mr Mercer told the BBC's World at One: 'Does that mean that we do nothing?'

He added: 'It's a narrative he's played to all his political career and I'm afraid it's nonsense.'

Labour former security minister Lord West said: 'I think we've got to be very careful when we talk about foreign wars of supporting, in effect, the radical Islamist narrative and myth.

'They've created the narrative and myth that because we're involved in war, that's why there is terrorism.'

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said she had agreed with Mr Corbyn over Iraq, but argued that terrorists would always find a reason for atrocities.

'I don't think we should be looking to blame anybody for what happened in Manchester other than the terrorist that carried out that atrocity and anybody who aided and abetted him in doing that,' she said.

'Terrorists will always look for ways to justify their actions and if it's not foreign policy, no doubt it will be something else, so they are to blame and nobody else.

'More generally, we must be able to have a robust debate about foreign policy, about security, about how we keep the population safe.

'I've been a long-standing critic of the war in Iraq, the SNP did not vote for the bombing campaign in Syria because we believe that these kinds of foreign-policy approaches have tended to hinder rather than help the process of dealing with the underlying problems.