UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has dismissed the allegations that he was a spy for Czechoslovakian intelligence as “entirely false and a ridiculous smear,” Corbyn’s spokesman said Thursday.
“The claim that he was an agent, asset or informer for any intelligence agency is entirely false and a ridiculous smear. Like other MPs, Jeremy has met diplomats from many countries. In the 1980s he met a Czech diplomat… for a cup of tea in the House of Commons. Jeremy neither had nor offered any privileged information to this or any other diplomat,” Corbyn’s spokesman said, as quoted by the Guardian newspaper.
According to the spokesman, it was well known that some intelligence officers used to lie to their superiors about recruiting people they had only met.
“The existence of these bogus claims does not make them in any way true,” he stressed.
Earlier in the day, the Sun tabloid published files on Corbyn from Czechoslovakian intelligence archives, where he was mentioned as a source under the code name COB who had at least three meetings with Czechoslovakian agents. The publication claimed Corbyn had “met a communist spy at the height of the Cold War and warned him of a clampdown by British intelligence.”
Corbyn has been Leader of the Labour Party since 2015. He has been the member of UK Parliament since 1983.
Since becoming the Labour leader, Corbyn has been under media attacks, which intensified during last year’s general election.