General Election 2017: Jeremy Corbyn confronted over attending a meeting 'honouring' dead IRA members

A Northern Irish man challenged Jeremy Corbyn over attending a commemoration for IRA fighters killed during an attempted terror attack in Loughgall in 1987.

Callum McNeill was a member of the studio audience during Sky News/Channel 4 leaders debate.

Both Mr Corbyn and Theresa May were asked questions by the audience before being grilled by veteran political interviewer Jeremy Paxman.

Mr McNeill asked the Labour leader why he had attended the meeting which “honoured” eight members of the republican terror cell who attempted to attack the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in the village.

Three men drove a digger with a bomb in its bucket through the perimeter fence while the rest of the unit opened fire on the building.

The base was half destroyed by the bomb but no soldiers were killed. Instead a 36-man unit of the SAS immediately ambushed and killed the group.

The deaths were the IRA’s greatest loss of life in a single incident during the "Troubles".

Mr Corbyn defended attending the meeting, saying it was to honoured everyone who had died in Northern Ireland during the conflict.

He said: “The contribution I made to that meeting was to call for a peace and dialogue. It is only by dialogue and process that we brought about the peace in Northern Ireland.

“I think that is a good thing and I think going forward we need to make sure that during the Brexit negotiations there is no return to any kind of hard border between Northern Ireland and the republic.”

The confrontation is the latest in a series of accusations about Mr Corbyn's links to the terror group.

During an interview with Andrew Neil on Sunday, Mr Corbyn was forced to deny he had ever met or supported members of the IRA as he faced accusations that he had failed to condemn a single atrocity carried out by the terror group

Instead he said: “I obviously did meet people from Sinn Fein, as indeed I met people from other organisations, and I always made the point that there had to be a dialogue and a peace process.”