Emily Thornberry has accused Michael Fallon of talking "bollocks" about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in a heated debate on live TV.
Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, ambushed the UK government's defence secretary with the revelation that he had met Syria's president Bashar al-Assad in 2007, following criticism from Fallon that Corbyn had previously met figures in the IRA.
Fallon claimed that Thornberry had raised the prospect of negotiating with Argentina about giving away the Falkland Islands – which she dismissed as "bollocks" – and said Corbyn "openly supported" the IRA.
The exchange was broadcast live on BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning. Read a full transcript of the debate below.
Sofa chat with Michael Fallon and @EmilyThornberry #marr
Andrew Marr: "Emily Thornberry, there’s been a lot of attacks on your party’s patriotism and so forth over the last few weeks. There’s another story in the papers today about Jeremy Corbyn and the IRA. What’s your message to those people who are patriotic working-class voters and they look at this stuff and they think, I just don’t like it?"
Emily Thornberry: "Well, I think there were negotiations going on behind the scenes and there were people speaking openly. This is something which has been known for 30 years and it’s being dragged up at this particular time because of the general election."
AM: "That’s not surprising."
ET: "Well, yeah, but you know..."
Michael Fallon: "He wants to be prime minister. That’s the risk."
ET: "I understand that, and I suppose if you judge people by who it is you spend time with, the question has to be, do you remember where you were on 27 May 2007?"
MF: "I’m sure you’re going to tell me."
ET: "Yes I am. You were in Syria and you were celebrating at a reception the re-election of President Assad with 99% of the vote. Now I’m not going to judge you on you going to a reception with Assad and I don’t think that people should judge Jeremy by trying to talk to people who might be open to a settlement in Northern Ireland."
MF: "I think there’s a little bit of a difference."
AM: "Is this true?"
MF: "There was a parliamentary visit. I was on a parliamentary all-party visit to Syria back in 2007. MPs have gone every year to Syria during the better times in the relationship between Syria and Britain."
ET: "But you were at a party, weren’t you?"
MF: "I don’t recall any party in Syria. I remember a fact-finding visit to Syria that happened every year with MPs going out there. But the difference, of course…"
AM: "Did you meet Assad when you were out there?"
MF: "I did meet Assad, indeed."
AM: "Shake his hand?"
MF: "Indeed, I met Assad."
ET: "And you celebrated his re-election."
MF: "I didn’t celebrate his re-election."
ET: "Well, that’s what the reception was for, it was celebrating his re-election."
MF: "Nonsense. It was 10 years ago, we had a different relationship with Assad here. But there’s a huge moral difference between talking to other foreign leaders, and I meet them all the time as defence secretary, and Jeremy Corbyn’s quite open support for the IRA which was actually engaged in Northern Ireland…"
ET: "That is not having open support for the IRA! You really can’t just go around making stuff up. There’s an election on and people need to make decisions based on the truth…"
MF: "He received them in parliament…"
ET: "You’ve just said, for example, that I want to negotiate the future of the Falklands. That is bollocks. I did not…"
AM: "That is what!? Go on, say it again."
ET: "That is untrue."
MF: "Just 20 minutes ago you implied sitting there…"
ET: "Oh come on, Michael, you really just can’t make this up as you go along. People need to make decisions in this general election based on facts and based on information, proper information, and it’s not right for you to go slinging around dead cats the way you do. People need to concentrate and work out ... because there’s a serious choice to be made."
MF: "Of course there is. You’ve told us, your excuse is that Jeremy Corbyn’s been on some kind of journey, but that is too great a risk for this country."
ET: "No, no, no, no."