Quotes from John McDonnell

There are some lines in the sand you just do not cross. Undermining basic civil liberties by locking people up for long periods without charge is one of them.

I do not want to be associated with those that are willing to support undermining the basic human rights that socialists have fought and sacrificed themselves to secure and protect over generations.

It was inevitable and understandable that the election of Jeremy Corbyn would be a massive culture shock for some sections of the party, especially some members of the parliamentary Labour party.

Out of the suffering of the 1930s, Britain built a civilising society, based in large part on the important lesson that unemployment is rarely the fault of individual malingering but the structural consequence of governments allowing the free market to rule our lives.

There's something in people's character, particularly the British character, about unfairness. They don't like it.

Well organised displays of spontaneous support is one of the New Labour machine's specialities.

The spread of information technology and the long-term decline in the cost of computing power have created opportunities that simply did not exist before. Airbnb, for example, could not have existed before the Internet.

Getting political representation is important, but change comes through using direct action, campaigning, and trade unions.

Heathrow expansion is an object lesson in the dominance of a rapacious sector of industry over government decision-making.

The assertion that the war in Iraq has had no role in increasing the terrorist threat to Britain is clearly just intellectually unsustainable.

We have to face up to the fact that without the armed uprising in 1916 Britain would not have withdrawn from southern Ireland.

The illegal 2003 invasion had little to do with liberating Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Instead, the real freedoms and benefits were destined to go to corporations like Halliburton and others that stood to gain from the privatisation of the formerly state-owned Iraqi economy.

I've always honestly and openly said I believe in a united Ireland, but the point was to try and get to a united Ireland without the violence.

It may sound corny in a cynical age but literally generations of our people have given much of their lives to establishing and cherishing the Labour party because they believed what the party told them when they joined.

Parties don't lose overnight, there is a gradual erosion of their base and electoral machine, which leads to sometimes cataclysmic defeat.

The decision over Heathrow expansion exemplifies the style of policy-making that starts with capitulation to a powerful self-interested lobby, blatantly fixes a public consultation and then drives through a policy that destroys any vestiges of green credentials the government had left.

In terms of mainstream media it's very difficult to break through if you're on the left.