THE military sent Jeremy Corbyn a “warning” during his bid to become prime minister and intelligence services deliberately undermined him, the former Labour leader said in an interview with Declassified UK.

Mr Corbyn spoke to the publication about actions taken by government institutions, senior officials, politicians and parts of the media to damage his chances of becoming PM.

A week after Mr Corbyn was elected Labour leader in 2015, the Sunday Times ran a story quoting a “senior serving general” who said the military would take “direct action” if he was elected.

“When that story came out … we obviously challenged it straight away and they said it was a rogue element and they didn’t speak for anybody else,” Mr Corbyn said.

“But I thought it was a sort of shot across the bows, a warning to me.”

MI5 and MI6 met Mr Corbyn in 2018 during confidential talks where they discussed security and foreign policy.

The existence of the meetings was leaked to the press by the services, Mr Corbyn said, in articles which implied a Corbyn victory could be concerning for security.

In June 2019, CIA director Mike Pompeo was recorded privately saying: “It could be that Mr Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected.

“It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back.

“We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”

Mr Corbyn said that the lack of British media reporting on the comment is because the platforms are largely “supine” and self-censoring.

“The vast majority of the mainstream media haven’t lifted so much as a little finger in support or defence of Julian Assange,” he said.