Coming soon: Sinn Féin at Labour conference on the ‘cost of Ireland’s partition’

Throughout Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party, his links to Sinn Féin have been called into question by his critics. As Mr S’s colleague Douglas Murray has previously reported, Corbyn was chumming up to the Irish republican party even while their military wing was blowing up ordinary pub-goers, shooting farmers in the head and planting bombs in Britain’s shopping centres.

So while times have changed, Mr S was curious to learn of a fringe event taking place at Labour conference in Liverpool. Steerpike understands that Sinn Féin will host a talk titled ‘Brexit: the cost of Ireland’s Partition’. For this, Sinn Féin’s vice president Mary Lou McDonald, Dave Anderson — the shadow Northern Ireland secretary — and Simon Dubbins are expected to discuss how the failure to reunify Ireland contributed to Brexit.

Whether they will discuss Corbyn’s lacklustre effort in the referendum campaign is unknown. Still, given that The Labour leader had to withdraw from a planned appearance at a Sinn Féin fringe event last conference over pressure from colleagues, Mr S suspects that it’s for the best he isn’t scheduled to speak this time around.