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Loony Len

Spooks could be posing as Twitter trolls to bring down Jeremy Corbyn claims Unite Boss ‘Red Len’ McCluskey

Len McCluskey said he believed MI5 could using 'dark practices' against Jeremy Corbyn

SPIES are trying to undermine  Jeremy Corbyn, his biggest union backer bizarrely claimed last night.

Red Len McCluskey said he thought MI5 could have resorted to “dark practices” to try to bring down the Labour leader

 McCluskey has backed Corbyn in the leadership contest which will run over the summer
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McCluskey has backed Corbyn in the leadership contest which will run over the summerCredit: Getty Images

In a bizarre rant, the boss of Unite the Union claimed: “I have been around long enough … the type of stuff that we ultimately find out about, about who was involved in who, the 30-year rule.”

He added: “Do you think that there’s not all kinds of rightwingers who are not secretly able to disguise themselves and stir up trouble? I find it amazing if people think that isn’t happening.”

“Well I tell you what, anybody who thinks that that isn’t happening doesn’t live in the same world that I live in,” he said.

Defending his nutty conspiracy theory, Mr McCluskey claimed: “We found out just a couple of years ago that the chair of my union then, the Transport and General Workers Union, was an MI5 informant at the time that there was a strike taking place that I personally as a worker was involved in.

 Red Len is the most powerful union boss and is influential on Labour's ruling body the NEC
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Red Len is the most powerful union boss and is influential on Labour's ruling body the NECCredit: PA:Press Association

“In 1972, I was on strike for six weeks. And 30 years later it comes out that the chair of my union at that time was an MI5 informant.”

Former Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith accused the union heavyweight of peddling “a downright insult to the dedicated staff of MI5 who are actually working day and night to protect us from terrorism.”

It is not the first time that lefty union baron has accused the security services of dirty tricks.

In 2011 he accused MI5 of infiltrating an anti-cuts demonstration in London and triggering violence.

“Perish the thought that Machiavellian forces could have been t work but i t has been known before”, he said.

“Agents provocateurs have been a common usage of governments throughout history, including our own.”

Mr McCluskey also accused MPs and others in the party who had complained of death threats and intimidation of exaggerating the problem, telling the Guardian: “There’s a hysteria being whipped up.”

“A few people say things they shouldn’t and then it’s blown up out of all proportion, to suit the imagery that the Labour party has somehow become a cesspit, and suddenly it’s a crisis,” he said.

 

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