IT WAS just heart-breaking to sit down with the victims of the IRAS campaign.
Nothing prepares you for listening to people who were blown up or whose mother or brothers were murdered in their campaign of terror.
They were each affected in different ways but they all say Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are completely unfit to run our country.
John Radley doesnt mince his words. He said: “He is undemocratic, unpatriotic. He hates his country.
It is shocking to believe that a man leading a major political party is known to have sympathies towards terrorist organisations which have murdered countless civilians and soldiers.
John, 60, was brought up in Birkenhead on Merseyside and now works in security, but was a fresh-faced 21-year-old in the First Battalion of the Irish Guards when an IRA nail bomb exploded at Chelsea Barracks in 1981.
Two people died, 21 were injured and John was left for dead.
He spent three-and-a-half weeks in intensive care with six-inch nails embedded in his neck and head and was visually impaired by a shard of glass in his eye.
“People say that can’t stand another five years of Tory austerity. Well, I have to say I find the prospect of having a terrorist sympathiser as our Prime Minister even worse,” he said.
“He is no better than the maggots he mixed with.
“I have voted Labour many times.
“Even after the bombing, I voted for them.
“But now with Jeremy Corbyn as leader, he has without doubt cost the Labour party this election.
“I believe if it was not for Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, Labour would possible have a chance of winning power.”
John feels so strongly, he couldnt live in a country run by Corbyn.
He said: “If I wake up on December 13 to see him walking into No10, come December 14 I will be making plans to leave the country.
“There is no way I will want to stay here with him as our Prime Minister.
“Some younger voters seem to have fallen for his carefully stage-managed image of a nice, elderly grandfather but deep down he is a nasty, nasty man.
“He hates everything British and makes no attempt to hide it.
“I have many veteran friends but I can count on one hand the number of people who say they are still going to vote Labour on December 12.
“They are proper, decent patriotic people who have taken bricks and stones, bullets and bombs – and they absolutely hate him with a vengeance.”
Its not just Corbyns track record of talking to terrorists, John doesnt trust him on Brexit or the economy either.
“He can’t even tell us what he would do about Brexit,” he added.
“I voted to Leave but Corbyn doesn’t seem to want to tell us what he thinks. And don’t get me started on his uncosted plans for free broadband and planting trees everywhere.”
Aileen Quinton, 61, lives in South West London and spent years campaigning for Labour but wouldnt dream of voting for them now.
Her mother Alberta was 72 when she was one of 12 murdered in the poppy day massacre at Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in 1987.
She was proudly wearing medals she earned serving in the RAF in WW2 when a bomb planted by the IRA went off.
Aileen said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s explanation is that he was campaigning for peace. If that’s the case, why was he was pictured so often slabbering over Sinn Fein but never seen with any on the Loyalist side?
“He always finds it difficult to condemn the IRA – and insists instead on condemning all violence.
“Why is it so hard just to condemn people who tried to murder our soldiers?
“How can we have a Prime Minister who hates his own country?
Aileen added: “I went out campaigning for Labour for many years – but not now.
“I won’t do anything that might help Corbyn get into power and that includes voting for him.”
She added: “If you are a Labour party supporter the only way to win your party back is to vote against it, I’m afraid.
“The long-term damage Corbyn will do to the country, and the Labour party, is incalculable.
Mike Drew, 49, from Bristol, had only been in the army a few months when he survived the Ballygawley bus bomb in 1988.
Eight of his comrades died, 19 were injured and Mike almost lost his life.
He needed hundreds of stitches and suffered from post-traumatic stress for years.
He told me he thinks about the bombing every day.
The floating voter has voted Labour before but is aghast at the idea of Corbyn or McDonnell in power.
He said: I couldnt think of anything worse. I could never vote for anything to do with them.
Jeremy Corbyn has had so many chances, hes been asked so many times to condemn the actions of the IRA, but he always says I condemn all killings.
“Its utter rubbish.
“He seems to side with any enemy of ours or the West and hes done it time and time again over the years.”
Trooper Simon Tipper grew up in Dudley and was just 16 when he joined the army. Three years later he was murdered in the Hyde Park bomb.
I miss our kid as though it were yesterday. He was a good boy, his brother Mark told me.
He always wanted to be a soldier.
Were patriotic. Our veins run red, white and blue.
Mark was brought up to vote Labour but would he vote for them with Corbyn in charge?
No, not now. I couldnt. You cant trust the man. Corbyn and McDonnell are not fit to run our country.
He thinks their attitude to the IRA is disgusting, utterly disgusting.
You tell me when hes backed a soldier,” he said.
“I have never known him stick up for this country. It hurts to think this man could run this country.
Mark, 59, runs his own business in Derbyshire and doesnt trust them on the economy either.
“Hes just tried to buy the votes of the women who were denied their pension,” he said.
“He keeps offering things, but all these things have to be paid for and his sums dont add up.”
Albert Walsh lost his brother, 17-year-old brother Les, too when the IRA blew up a bus on the M62 in 1974.
For somebody to promote and support terrorist groups is not acceptable. I dont know how he could show his face.
Jeremy Corbyn couldnt run a bath, never mind the country.
I wouldnt trust him with anything. Hes a totally untrustworthy man.
The mans a disgrace.”
And Albert doesnt trust McDonnell either: Can you imagine the state wed be in with those two running the country?
