PRIME Minister Boris Johnson continues to face huge pressure to block Claire Fox’s controversial peerage as anger mounts over the move.

The former Brexit Party north west MEP was among 36 people to be given a seat in the House of Lords on Friday but it sparked controversy.

Ms Fox is a former core activist and organiser for the Revolutionary Communist Party.

After the 1993 Warrington bombing, which killed Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball, the Revolutionary Communist Party’s official newsletter stated that they defended ‘the right of the Irish people to take whatever measures necessary in their struggle for freedom’.

Ms Fox was also a member of the Irish Freedom Movement, which backed dissident republicanism.

The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation, which is based at the Peace Centre, was established after the deaths of 12-year-old Tim and three-year-old Johnathan in the IRA bombing. It was set up by Tim’s parents, Colin and Wendy.

Colin has said that the offer of a peerage ‘offends me and many others deeply’.

Labour’s Warrington North MP Charlotte Nichols has written to the Prime Minister to urge him to use his power to block the nomination.

The politician says she notes ‘with alarm’ that Ms Fox’s name is among the new peers named on Friday.

Warrington Guardian:

MP Charlotte Nichols

In the letter, she said: “As you will be no doubt be aware, in 1993 Warrington was bombed by the IRA in a heinous attack which killed three-year-old Johnathan Ball and 12-year-old Tim Parry, injured 54 others and changed countless lives forever.

“In interviews as recent as last year, including with Hannah Miller from ITV, she has repeatedly been given the opportunity to apologise or distance herself from these remarks and has refused.

“The nomination of Ms Fox has not only caused considerable hurt to those directly affected by the bombing of Warrington, but also revulsion in my constituency and in our town more widely as a result of this.

“To allow Ms Fox to become a life peer would be to show crass insensitivity to victims of terrorism and to the communities still scarred by the attack 27 years on.

“Warrington will never forget that day, nor the victims whose lives were cruelly cut short.

“Further, I urge you to make good on your promise, as yet unfulfilled, to continue funding the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation to continue to honour their legacy.”

Labour’s deputy leader and party chair Angela Rayner has commented on Ms Nichols’ call for the Prime Minister to block the peerage.

She said: “Boris Johnson’s failure to block the elevation of Claire Fox to the House of Lords is an insult to the people of the north west.

“The awarding of a life peerage to someone who has repeatedly refused to apologise for her support of the heinous IRA bombing attack in Warrington in 1993 has rightly caused revulsion and real hurt both in Warrington and across our region.

“The Prime Minister is showing crass insensitivity to the families of those who lost their lives in 1993 and countless others whose lives were changed forever that day, and as a result of the IRA attack in Manchester city centre in 1996.

“If the Prime Minister refuses to block this nomination he is showing that he doesn’t care about the victims and survivors of terrorism in our communities.”

The Conservatives have responded to the comments from Labour.

North West Durham MP Richard Holden said: “It is the height of hypocrisy for Angela Rayner to lecture us when she spent five years urging the British people to put our national security in the hands of Jeremy Corbyn – a man who sided with those who sought to do us harm time after time.

“This Conservative Government will always work to keep the people of the United Kingdom safe.”

Warrington South Tory MP Andy Carter has accused Labour of having ‘selected memory loss’.

He added: “Claire Fox has not been nominated to the House of Lords as a Conservative peer, she has been nominated as an unaffiliated peer.

“The process for appointment of unaffiliated peers is through the independent House of Lords Appointment Commission, not the Government.

“What rankles me and so many is Ms Fox’s refusal to acknowledge how her comments at the time caused such hurt to families in Warrington.

“If her views have changed she should say so, she should apologise to the families affected.”

A No 10 spokesman said: "Claire Fox has addressed her historic comments about the Troubles and acknowledged the pain that the families of the victims of terrorism have faced.

"She is not a Conservative peer, and her political views will differ from those of the Conservative Government."