There was a lot of discussion a year ago of Claire Fox's past support for IRA terrorism (pre-Good Friday) and her defence of that historic support for political violence, while regarding it as belonging to a past period that is over
* Opposes political violence now & sees no justification for republican terrorism after 1998
* Never resiled from/regretted vocal support for IRA murders pre-ceasefire. Felt wrong to be asked to apologise for something she "sincerely believed for years"
* Never resiled from/regretted vocal support for IRA murders pre-ceasefire. Felt wrong to be asked to apologise for something she "sincerely believed for years"
Fox did condemn in 2019 all post-1998 dissident terrorism or violence. 
Two competing principles, somewhat in tension
* Democratic politics should seek to engage psst supporters of violence - eg Sinn Fein - into polity (if break with violence sincere, as it is with CF).
* Lack of disavowal of past support for assassination as extension of politics
* Democratic politics should seek to engage psst supporters of violence - eg Sinn Fein - into polity (if break with violence sincere, as it is with CF).
* Lack of disavowal of past support for assassination as extension of politics
This is the RCP defence of the attempted (failed) assassination of a Prime Minister. One sitting MP Anthony Berry was among the 5 people killed.
The problem with a continued contemporary defence of historic support for assassinations against elected MPs is that - logically - this entails that answer to "can assassinations against British politicians be justified?" must, at least in part, be "that depends on the cause"
This 2019 thread has the details of the various challenges & responses last year
Fox regards all of this as belonging to the past
Aileen Quinton - a Brexit Party candidate whose mother was killed by the IRA bomb at the Fermanagh Remembrance Sunday bombing in 1987 - says current/ongoing refusals to disavow past support for murder are also about now, not the past
Fox says, in a new statement, that "contrary to what has been reported elsewhere" she does not support or defend the Warrington bombing. This is something of a shift of position from a year ago, and is certainly a big shift from 1993.
Her 2019 statement was that she had "never sought to disguise" her views [in support of the IRA campaign] though they had "remained unaired for many years" - while also acknowledging the pain to the murder victims families.
In 1993, Fox's Irish Freedom Movement disrupted the Hyde Park peace rally commemorating the Warrington murders in order to "spoil the party" and defend the bombing. Fox was herself a contributor to this issue, & her sister was the editor.
Her 2019 defence of her support for the IRA - dismissing the suggestion that it was "youthful folly" and saying it made her "mad" to be asked by Toby Young to apologise for something she sincerely believed for years - can be heard here
Quillette interview, 2019
