Oh dear. When the Sun reported this month that Jeremy Corbyn met with a Czech spy – posing as a diplomat – during the cold war, the story appeared to raise serious questions over the Labour leader’s judgment. A spokesman for the Labour leader admitted he had met a diplomat, but said Corbyn had never knowingly talked to a spy. However, things took a turn for the obscure when former Czech intelligence officer Jan Sarkocy claimed that he met Corbyn and recruited him as an intelligence asset – a claim Labour dismissed as a ‘ridiculous smear’.
This denial wasn’t enough to stop some Tories going on the offensive. Tory vice-chair Ben Bradley tweeted that Corbyn had ‘sold British secrets to communist spies’. The Conservative MP went on to delete the tweet when Corbyn’s legal team got in touch. Now Bradley has had to issue a grovelling apology to Corbyn, agree to make a substantial donation to charities of the Labour Leader’s choosing and meet his legal costs:
‘On 19 February 2018 I made a seriously defamatory statement on my Twitter account, ‘Ben Bradley MP (@bbradleymp)’, about Jeremy Corbyn, alleging he sold British secrets to communist spies.
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