Jeremy Corbyn heckled by his own MPs while responding the Chilcot report

Jeremy Corbyn has seized on the Chilcot report as backing his assertion that the Iraq War was an act of military aggression based on a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. 

In a sign of the continued divisions within his party over Iraq and his leadership, Mr Corbyn was heckled by his own MPs as he gave his response to the Chilcot report.

The Labour leader, who voted against the 2003 invasion, again said the conflict was illegal as he set out his response.

Mr Corbyn has been an anti-war activist for decades and previously chaired the Stop the War coalition, which was founded after former US president George W Bush set out his intentions to wage a “war on terror” in 2001.

The Labour leader told the Commons: “The war was not in any way, as Sir John Chilcot says, a last resort. Frankly, it was an act of military aggression launched on a false pretext, as the inquiry accepts, and has long been regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion.”

Mr Corbyn, who did not mention Blair by name, said MPs had been misled by the former premier’s government and said those responsible for going to war must “face up to the consequences”.

He said: “We now know that the house was misled in the run-up to the war and the house must now decide how to deal with it 13 years later, just as all those who took the decisions laid bare in the Chilcot Report must face up to the consequences of their actions.”