In this latest One More Mission conversation, Simon Barry reflects on his experiences serving in Northern Ireland, the bonds forged through service, and why many veterans feel compelled to speak out decades later.

From South Armagh in the 1970s to today’s legacy debate, he discusses duty, trust, comradeship and the responsibility that continues long after leaving uniform.

“I didn’t think I’d be refighting things that we did 50 years ago.”

For Simon, this is one more mission: ensuring that those who served are heard and that the principles they believed they were defending are not forgotten.

#JusticeForVeterans #Veterans #NorthernIreland #MilitaryService

The Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) has published its investigation into the murder of Rory O’Kelly, a solicitor and Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, who was shot dead in Coalisland in 1977.

The report provides a detailed reconstruction of his final days and concludes that Rory was deliberately targeted because of his role in administering justice. It finds that his murder was part of a wider Provisional IRA campaign against those involved in Northern Ireland’s judicial and administrative systems.

For his family, the report provides important recognition.

They received an official account of what happened. They received confirmation that Rory was not the victim of a random act of violence, but a targeted attack because of the work he carried out.

But the central questions remain unanswered.

After a lengthy investigation:

· No suspect has been identified

· No prosecution has followed

· No individual has been held accountable

· No definitive answer has been provided as to who carried out the murder

The ICRIR concluded that the killing involved planning.

The attack required a decision to target Rory, intelligence about his movements, logistical arrangements, a weapon and support from others.

Yet the people who planned, supported or carried out the murder have not been identified.

That raises a fundamental question about the legacy process.

The issue is not whether Rory O’Kelly deserved a thorough investigation. Every victim and every family deserves the truth about what happened to their loved one.

The question is how public policy should measure the value of a legacy investigation when the principal outcome is improved historical understanding rather than justice or accountability.

The report demonstrates that information can still be recovered nearly half a century later. But it also highlights a difficult reality: people who knew about the planning, the operation and those involved may still be alive.

The challenge is whether the mechanisms now available can recover that knowledge.

A wider question is consistency.

The ICRIR has powers to require information from individuals and organisations.

However, recovering the truth ultimately depends on cooperation from those who possess relevant knowledge. Where individuals or organisations choose not to engage, the ability to establish responsibility is severely limited.

At the same time, former members of the armed forces remain subject to compulsory engagement with legal processes.

A legacy system must command confidence among victims, survivors and the wider public. That requires transparency about what it can achieve, what it cannot achieve, and whether the outcomes delivered are proportionate to the resources committed.

To be sure, families deserve answers.

But the public also deserves an honest assessment of what the legacy process is delivering — and for whom.

Military action does not begin with the soldier. It begins with a political decision.

Ministers authorise the use of force. Commanders turn political objectives into operational plans. Subordinate commanders translate those plans into tactical actions. Service personnel then carry them out within rules of engagement and the legal framework established for the operation.

Yet years — sometimes decades — later, it is often the actions of those at the end of that chain that are subjected to renewed scrutiny.

Under Orders, a Salus Archive film, examines Sir David Davis’s Military Operations Bill and the principle at its heart: authority and responsibility should remain connected.

Critics argue that the Bill could provide immunity for military personnel or allow ministers to escape scrutiny for operations they authorised. Davis rejects both claims.

The Bill expressly preserves criminal liability for serious offences, including war crimes and genocide. What it seeks to prevent is repeated investigation without genuinely new and compelling evidence.

And it asks a larger question about political responsibility.

Those who make the decision to send British forces into armed conflict exercise enormous authority. What responsibility should accompany it?

Featuring Sir David Davis MP and Dr Robert Parr.

For a deep dive, read: Warfare, Not Lawfare: A New Legal Framework for Military Operations, by Alexander Gray, Director of Sovereignty at the Prosperity Institute.

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Watch Under Orders.

#JusticeForVeterans #MilitaryOperations #Veterans #MilitaryLaw #Defence

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What did the IRA’s armed campaign actually achieve?

It is a question worth asking because one of the men who fought that campaign has given a remarkable answer.

Billy “Blue” Kelly was no armchair republican. He was an IRA gunman and sniper who admitted killing British soldiers. He went to prison. In 1972, he was part of the IRA delegation that travelled to Libya and persuaded Colonel Gaddafi to supply the organisation with weapons and explosives.

Before his death, Kelly recorded an interview that he insisted should not be published until he was gone.

His conclusion was stark:

“The IRA campaign wasn’t worth the loss of a single life, never mind nearly 4,000.”

And then he addressed the central question:

“The IRA gained nothing from this war. Any changes came about as a result of civil rights and changes in employment and equality law. We fought to get the Brits out of Ireland, but we failed.”

That raises a question which deserves serious examination.

What did the IRA’s armed campaign achieve that could not reasonably have been achieved through civil-rights agitation, democratic politics and constitutional reform?

And were any additional gains proportionate to the human, social, political and economic costs of the campaign?

The IRA’s objective was not better employment law or improved civil rights. It was to end British rule in Northern Ireland and achieve a united Ireland.

It did not achieve that objective.

Meanwhile, thousands died. Many more were injured. Communities lived with bombing, shooting, intimidation and fear. Vast resources were consumed by terrorism, counter-terrorism and repairing the physical and social damage of the conflict.

A counterfactual is also rarely confronted.

What might Northern Ireland have become had those decades instead been spent pursuing reform through civil-rights campaigning, democratic politics and constitutional negotiation?

We cannot know. But the existence of reforms at the end of the Troubles cannot simply be offered as proof that three decades of violence were necessary to obtain them.

That causal link has to be demonstrated.

Kelly’s testimony is important because it comes from inside the movement. Stripped to its essentials, his argument is:

We had an objective.

We used violence to obtain it.

We did not obtain it.

And the genuine improvements that did occur came through another mechanism.

Kelly went further. He said he had wanted to say this for a long time, but believed that if he had spoken while alive he would have been “castigated and pressurised into retracting it”.

Perhaps that is the question his final interview leaves behind.

Not who won the Troubles.

Not whose mythology should prevail.

But something considerably more difficult:

Was the IRA’s campaign worth what it cost the people of Northern Ireland?

Fear of speaking out

There is another question raised by Kelly’s interview, and perhaps an even more disturbing one, especially at a time when elderly veterans continue to face the possibility of their conduct being examined and re-examined through legacy investigations, inquests and other legal processes.

Why did an IRA veteran believe he could only tell his version of the truth after he was dead?

Kelly told the journalist that publishing his views while he was alive would get him “in big trouble”. He said that if he had spoken previously, he would have been “castigated and pressurised into retracting it”.

Consider the contrast.

The state continues to build elaborate legal mechanisms to examine events from half a century ago. The present Government says its legislation will prevent unnecessary repeated investigations of veterans, while still allowing some legacy cases to proceed. The very existence of those proposed safeguards acknowledges the problem created by repeatedly examining the same historic events.

Yet here was a man who had actually been an IRA gunman, admitted killing British soldiers and helped secure weapons from Gaddafi, saying that he dared not publicly challenge the republican account of the conflict until he was beyond the reach of those he feared.

That deserves attention too.

How many former participants privately question the stories they are expected to repeat publicly?

How many people who lived in communities dominated by paramilitary organisations have different accounts of what happened, what was done in their name and whether it achieved anything?

And how complete can our understanding of the Troubles ever be if some of those voices still believe silence is safer than speaking?

Truth cannot mean endlessly examining one set of people while others remain afraid to tell their own stories.

Nearly three decades after the Belfast Agreement, nobody should have to wait until death to say what they believe happened.

The Government says substantial amendments are coming to its Northern Ireland Troubles Bill.

We are told they will address the concerns of veterans. We are told Ministers are listening. We are told the legislation will change.

But Parliament still has not seen the Government’s promised package.

That should concern anyone who believes legislation should be made in Parliament rather than presented to Parliament as the conclusion of negotiations conducted elsewhere.

Numerous amendments are already listed against the Bill on the parliamentary website. Yet the Government continues to say that further, substantial amendments are coming.

Meanwhile, it remains committed to the Joint Framework agreed with the Irish Government.

That Framework does not merely provide for consultation. It establishes commitments by both Governments based upon what they describe as “reciprocal cooperation”.

Cooperation between governments is normal. The Troubles crossed the border and potentially relevant information exists in both jurisdictions.

But cooperation raises a different question when it begins to constrain what the British Government believes it can put before the British Parliament.

Ireland is another foreign state. Westminster makes UK law.

Yet we still do not know how far the Government’s forthcoming amendments have been shaped by negotiations with a foreign government, which provisions are regarded as necessary to maintain the Joint Framework, or what genuinely reciprocal concessions have been secured from Ireland.

That creates the possibility of a self-imposed constraint on Parliament through prior executive agreement with Dublin — what some are calling a surrender of sovereignty.

That is a serious charge. It deserves a serious answer.

Because the question is not simply whether Parliament retains the legal power to amend the Bill. Of course it does.

The question is what happens when MPs are eventually presented with provisions already negotiated with another government.

Suppose an MP wants to amend one of them.

Will the answer be that changing the provision would undermine the Joint Framework?

Would it jeopardise Irish cooperation?

Would it disturb commitments already made to Dublin?

If so, Parliament’s legal sovereignty remains intact, while the Executive has already narrowed its practical room for manoeuvre.

That is precisely why the Government should publish its amendments as early as possible.

There is also the question of reciprocity.

For decades, the British state has generated and retained enormous quantities of material concerning the conduct of soldiers, police officers and officials during the Troubles.

The terrorist organisations they confronted left nothing remotely comparable.

If the new legacy arrangements are going to reach deeply into British military, police and intelligence records, Parliament is entitled to know exactly what access will be available to relevant material held by the Irish state.

Not promises of cooperation.

Not diplomatic assurances.

Actual access.

What Irish Government and Garda records will investigators be able to obtain?

What can Ireland refuse to disclose?

What national-security restrictions will apply?

Are those restrictions equivalent to those applying to British institutions?

And after half a century, what realistic assessment has been made of how much significant new evidence this elaborate process is actually likely to uncover?

Then there is time.

Sir Chris Bryant inherited this legislation when he became Northern Ireland Secretary. He now owns what happens next.

The danger is that a substantial Government package emerges only shortly before Parliament is expected to consider it.

MPs would then have to understand complicated provisions concerning investigations, disclosure, national security, veterans, victims and human-rights law — while also establishing which elements have already been settled through negotiations between London and Dublin.

Parliament may retain the theoretical power to amend every line.

But that means considerably less if MPs are presented at the last moment with an intricate package which Ministers say is necessary to preserve an agreement already reached with a foreign power

Perhaps the Government, given its parliamentary majority, expects the Bill to pass without difficulty.

That makes transparency even more important.

It should answer some straightforward questions:

• When will its amendments be published?

• Which provisions have been discussed with the Irish Government?

• Which provisions result from commitments under the Joint Framework?

• What has Ireland undertaken to provide in return?

• Which provisions remain genuinely open to alteration by Parliament?

• How much time will MPs and affected parties have to examine the complete package before Parliament is expected to decide?

This is not an argument against cooperation with Ireland.

It is an argument about the point at which cooperation becomes constraint.

The Government has had months to negotiate.

Parliament must not be given days to scrutinise the result.

Publish the amendments.

Publish the terms of the bargain.

Give Parliament time to do its job.

The coming weeks will be important for everyone concerned with how the UK deals with the legacy of the Troubles and the future legal framework governing military operations.

There are currently three separate parliamentary tracks.

The Government’s Troubles Bill

The Government’s Troubles Bill remains the main legislative vehicle.

On 13 October, Parliament is scheduled to consider a carry-over motion relating to the Bill.

This requires careful attention because the Bill has already been carried over once. A carry-over motion is not a vote on whether MPs support or oppose the Bill. It is a procedural decision about whether Parliament should continue considering legislation that has not yet completed its passage.

The important question is what the wording of the motion actually says.

Is this simply a procedural step? Is the Government seeking additional time? Does it indicate that the timetable has changed?

Until the motion is published, those questions remain open.

The substantive debate comes later, when MPs consider the Government’s promised amendments, including changes relating to veterans and the treatment of former members of the security forces.

Jopp’s Bill

Lincoln Jopp’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Criminal Investigations etc) Bill is also moving through Parliament.

Unlike a Presentation Bill, Jopp’s Bill secured its place through the Private Members’ Bill ballot, giving it a stronger procedural position.

Its Second Reading debate began on 4 September but was not completed. It resumes on 16 October.

The Bill is significant because it addresses a specific question: under what circumstances should new Troubles-related investigations, prosecutions, inquests or inquiries begin?

Whatever happens to Jopp’s Bill, the debate takes place immediately before the Government’s own legislation reaches its most important stages.

Sir David Davis’ Military Operation Bill

Sir David Davis’s Military Operations Bill (MILOPS) takes a broader approach and could be a game changer.

Rather than focusing only on Northern Ireland, it asks a wider question: how should democratic states authorise military action and provide a clear legal framework for examining conduct during military operations?

The Bill was introduced by presentation and has a Second Reading date of 12 March 2027.

Its immediate parliamentary prospects therefore differ from Jopp’s Bill, but its significance is that it moves the discussion beyond legacy cases and toward a general principle about how democracies govern the use of military force.

The October Window

The sequence is therefore:

13 October: Carry-over-related motion on the Government’s Troubles Bill

16 October: Resumption of Second Reading debate on Lincoln Jopp’s Bill

19–20 October: Committee and remaining Commons stages of the Government’s Troubles Bill

12 March 2027: Second Reading of Sir David Davis’s Military Operations Bill

The immediate focus should therefore be on understanding the detail:

• What amendments does the Government bring forward?

• How does Parliament respond?

• What protections are included for those who served?

• What principles should apply beyond Northern Ireland?

The coming weeks are not simply about one Bill.

They are about determining how Parliament balances three things:

1. Justice for victims.

2. Finality after decades of investigation.

3. A fair and workable framework for those who serve the state.

The debate continues.

Rolling Thunder went to Westminster to make its presence seen — and heard.

Veterans and supporters gathered to oppose the Government’s Troubles legislation and raise concerns about former servicemen facing further legal proceedings over events that took place decades ago.

The motorcycles brought the noise. Behind them was a more serious argument about service, responsibility and the treatment of those who served in Northern Ireland.

Justuceforveterans.uk hears directly from some of those who travelled to Westminster and asks why, decades after the Troubles, they believe the fight is far from over.

#RollingThunder #Veterans #NorthernIreland #Westminster #Troubles

The defeat of the assisted dying bill provides an important lesson for veterans concerned about the Troubles Bill.

It shows why what happens in the House of Lords matters — and why veterans need to use the time that Lords scrutiny can create.

The assisted dying bill originally passed its crucial Commons vote in June 2025 by just 23 votes.

It then went to the House of Lords.

There, prolonged scrutiny, opposition and demands for changes prevented the legislation from completing its passage before the end of the parliamentary session.

That did something politically important.

It bought time.

The argument did not end with the original Commons vote. MPs continued to hear concerns. The legislation continued to be examined. Its safeguards and consequences remained under discussion. Campaigners had more opportunities to make their case nationally and locally.

When assisted dying returned to the Commons this week, the result was different.

The bill was defeated by 286 votes to 270.

That does not mean the circumstances are identical. Assisted dying was a free vote, whereas the Government can whip its MPs on its Troubles legislation.

But the strategic lesson is difficult to miss.

A Commons vote does not necessarily settle a political argument.

The Lords can force further scrutiny. Amendments can send legislation back to the Commons. Delay can create months rather than days in which arguments can be tested, evidence produced and political pressure built.

That is why veterans should not regard the Lords campaign as something happening remotely in Westminster.

The Lords can provide the time. Veterans and their supporters need to use it.

That means engaging locally now.

Write to your MP and ask where they stand.

Go to constituency surgeries. Ask specific questions and seek specific answers.

Talk to local newspapers, radio stations and journalists. Put a local veteran’s face and experience alongside what can otherwise appear to be an obscure piece of Westminster legislation.

Engage with Royal British Legion branches, regimental associations, veterans’ organisations, community groups and other established local organisations.

Use Facebook groups and other local online networks — but also engage in the real world.

Find others in your constituency who share your concerns. Independent approaches from constituents are much harder to dismiss as an organised email campaign.

And take the argument beyond the veterans’ community.

The central questions concern more than veterans: equality before the law, the responsibilities of government, the repeated investigation of historic events and whether ministers should ultimately accept responsibility for military operations authorised by the state.

The immediate objective in the Lords does not necessarily have to be outright defeat of the Troubles Bill.

It can be to deny the Government a quick and easy passage.

Every amendment, every serious debate and every additional period of scrutiny creates time.

And every additional week gives veterans another opportunity to talk to an MP, another local journalist an opportunity to examine the issue, another community organisation an opportunity to become involved and another constituency an opportunity to make itself heard.

The assisted dying bill demonstrates what can happen when an issue remains politically alive long enough for MPs to reconsider.

The House of Lords can help keep the Troubles Bill alive as a political issue.

But Westminster cannot manufacture constituency pressure.

That part has to come from veterans and their supporters.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ‘WHIP’ MPs?

Unlike the assisted dying bill, which was treated as a free vote on which MPs could vote according to their own judgement, government legislation is normally whipped.

A party whip is an instruction to MPs about how the party expects them to vote. The importance attached to a vote is traditionally indicated by how heavily it is underlined on the parliamentary instruction sent to MPs.

A three-line whip is the strongest instruction. MPs are expected to attend and vote with their party unless they have been formally excused.

For a Labour MP, voting against a whipped Labour Government bill is therefore a much bigger step than voting against a proposal in a free vote. It means deliberately breaking with the Government and can carry political consequences within the parliamentary party.

That makes the assisted dying comparison important — but not identical.

The lesson is not that MPs can simply be persuaded to change their minds. It is that prolonged parliamentary scrutiny can create the time for the political cost of continuing to support legislation to change.

For veterans, that makes constituency engagement particularly important.

An MP considering whether to abstain, press ministers for amendments or ultimately vote against their own Government needs to know that concern about the legislation exists beyond Westminster.

Letters from constituents, constituency surgeries, local newspaper coverage, veterans’ organisations, community groups, and sustained local discussion can all help show this is not simply a Westminster dispute.

The Lords can create time. Local engagement can change the political calculation.

FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP DO MORE

Veterans are not only part of history. They remain citizens, constituents and participants in democratic life.

Do not rely on template letters. Get personal. SalusArchive.com has information, evidence and tips for approaching your MP.

Visit: https://salusarchive.com/section-6-take-action/

www.salusarchive.com

Veterans who have met ministers in recent days have come away encouraged by what they have heard.

That is welcome. They were right to go. Ministers should be meeting veterans, listening to their concerns and responding to them. If those involved believe progress is being made, that deserves acknowledgement.

But this is not the time to stand down. It is time to STAND TO.

The critical date is 13 October.

There has been some confusion because the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill has already been “carried over” once.

On 27 April, MPs agreed to carry the Bill from one parliamentary Session into the next. That kept it alive when Parliament was prorogued.

The October timetable is different.

On 13 October, the Bill faces another procedural step ahead of what is shaping up to be an extraordinarily compressed period of Commons scrutiny.

The Government says it intends to bring forward a “substantial package of amendments safeguarding our Operation Banner veterans.”

That sounds encouraging.

But the Government is reportedly preparing more than 100 amendments to an exceptionally complicated piece of legislation.

MPs have then been allocated just two days — 19 and 20 October — to consider and amend the Bill.

John Lamont, the Shadow Deputy Leader of the House, has already warned that MPs are being given “very little time” to scrutinise it.

That is why positive meetings with ministers cannot be treated as the end of the campaign.

Veterans who attended those meetings can only judge what was put before them and the assurances they received. They face no criticism for reporting positively on constructive engagement.

The question for everyone else is what happens next.

Assurances are not amendments. Amendments are not law.

And with potentially more than 100 amendments and a severely compressed parliamentary timetable, continued scrutiny matters more than ever.

That means constituency action.

Do not rely on form emails.

Write personally to your MP.

Tell them who you are and why this matters to you. If you served, say so. If a family member served, tell them. If you simply believe that the country owes a duty to those it sent into harm’s way, explain that.

Then ask for a meeting.

MPs need to encounter this issue not as another batch of identical messages in an inbox (or spam folder0, but through the people they represent.

Ask your MP where they stand.

Ask whether they have examined the proposed protections for Operation Banner veterans.

Ask whether they will scrutinise the Government’s amendments rather than simply accept assurances about what those amendments are intended to achieve.

And ask the fundamental question: When the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill comes before you, what are you personally going to do?

Do not wait until 19 October.

By then MPs will already be dealing with the legislation.

13 October is the target.

By that date, MPs across the country should have received personal letters and emails from constituents. Meeting requests should have been made. Constituency surgeries should be taking place. MPs should know that the people they represent are watching what happens next.

The encouraging ministerial meetings demonstrate the value of direct engagement.

Now that engagement needs to spread from Westminster to constituencies across the country.

A good meeting is progress. It is not victory.

Write personally. Ask for a meeting. Put the question directly. Get your MP on the record.

STAND TO: 13 OCTOBER.

When veterans started seeing posts about the Government preparing to mobilise them as part of Britain’s preparations for a future war, they thought it was a joke.

But, folks, that’s the plan.

Louise Sandher-Jones, the Armed Forces minister, a staunch supporter of Labour’s Troubles Bill and who called veterans opposing it naïve and refused to say if IRA terrorists will join Labour’s Troubles commission, revealed Britain is planning a major drill to mobilise its army of veterans as it prepares for war.

Former servicemen and women could be recalled, retrained and returned to military service. The Strategic Reserve — some 95,000 former personnel — is increasingly being regarded as an essential part of Britain’s ability to fight.

There is something obscene about the contradiction.

At the same time as the state is looking to veterans because it may need them to fight again, it is paving the way for military veterans to remain exposed to investigation and repeated reinvestigation over operations conducted decades ago.

The message appears to be:

Your obligation to the country can last into your sixties. The country’s obligation to you apparently does not.

Justice for Veterans does not argue that soldiers should be above the law. Where credible evidence of wrongdoing exists, it should be investigated.

But neither should those who served be subjected to an endless cycle of investigation, reinvestigation and legal uncertainty while the politicians who authorised military operations remain largely insulated from responsibility for the consequences.

If Britain expects former servicemen and women to answer the call again, it has a corresponding duty to stand behind those it sent into harm’s way before.

The Government cannot demand lifelong military obligation from veterans while offering them no corresponding certainty that the state will honour its obligations to them.

Responsibility for the use of military force is a bipartisan issue.

Governments of both parties have sent British servicemen into danger, and governments of both parties carry responsibilities towards those they sent.

But there is a particular point that Labour should reflect upon.

For generations, the British Armed Forces have drawn heavily from working-class communities. Many servicemen came from families where supporting Labour was not simply a choice made at each election. It was part of the family’s political identity, passed from one generation to the next.

And when Labour governments sent them to fight, they went.

Attlee committed British forces to the counter-insurgency campaign in Malaya. Attlee also decided to commit British forces in support of the US-led UN effort in the Korean War.

Wilson sent the Army onto the streets of Northern Ireland.

Blair sent British forces into Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq.

These were very different conflicts, fought for very different reasons. Some were justified. Others remain deeply controversial.

That isn’t the point.

The point is that the men sent to fight trusted the government that sent them.

The young soldier did not formulate British foreign policy.

He did not decide whether troops should patrol Belfast, enter Basra or deploy to Helmand.

Those decisions were made by ministers.

The serviceman accepted that an elected government had the authority to make them. Then he did what his country asked of him.

That relationship involves obligations in both directions.

Government can ask a young man to go somewhere he may be killed and, if necessary, to use lethal force against another human being.

In return, government assumes a responsibility towards those it sends.

That does not mean excusing criminal behaviour. A uniform cannot place anyone above the law.

But neither can government ask servicemen to carry the physical and moral burden of its decisions and then, decades later, allow political responsibility to disappear while the actions of individual veterans are examined again and again.

And that presents today’s Labour Party with a problem that goes considerably beyond veterans policy.

Many of the veterans affected come from Labour families.

Their fathers voted Labour. Their grandfathers voted Labour. In some cases they have voted Labour throughout their own lives.

Now some find themselves questioning an allegiance they once took for granted.

Not because they suddenly changed their values.

Because they are asking whether the party they trusted still feels the same obligation towards them.

That should concern Labour.

These men trusted Labour governments when those governments sent them into danger. They accepted the authority of the state, served where they were ordered to serve and lived with the consequences.

Some never came home.

Those who did are entitled to expect that the trust runs both ways.

If the state asks a man to risk his life in its service, the state acquires a duty towards him that does not expire when the operation ends.

And when a political party loses the trust of people whose families have supported it for generations, it should ask itself why.

It has been an extraordinary week in the campaign over Northern Ireland legacy and the treatment of veterans.

It began with former brigadier and head of the SAS Regimental Association (SASRA) publicly warning that special forces recruitment is suffering as a result of endless legal actions against soldiers. He told the Daily Telegraph that the association was prepared to take legal action against the Government to protect soldiers who served in Northern Ireland from prosecution under Labour’s Troubles bill and was instigating steps to raise a “fighting fund”.

The following day, Policy Exchange published a report, The Special Air Service in Northern Ireland: What they did, why it matters, and what is being done to them now, which Al Carns, former armed forces minister, supported in The Times.

Then a delegation from the Parachute Regiment Association, led by Terry Wood, met with Sir Chris Bryant.

On Friday, Conservative MP Lincoln Jopp began presenting his Northern Ireland Troubles (Criminal Investigations etc) Bill, which Labour whips then used delaying tactics to block its progress.

Then, the following Monday, Sir David Davis MP presented his Military Operations Bill, supported by a Prosperity Institute report, which would force Ministers to own decisions to send British troops into battle.

However, in the latest One More Mission podcast, Simon Brown argues that one issue should not be lost amid the political activity:

The proposed role of the Irish Government in the new legacy arrangements.

The UK and Irish governments have committed themselves to a system based upon reciprocal cooperation. Dublin is establishing mechanisms intended to allow Irish authorities to provide documents and testimony to the new Legacy Commission. At the same time, the two governments have also committed to establishing the cross-border Independent Commission on Information Retrieval.

On paper, that sounds balanced.

Simon asks whether it will be balanced in practice.

For decades, terrorists operated across the border. Weapons, explosives, bomb-making expertise and personnel moved through the Republic. Attacks carried out in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain had important connections south of the border.

There are also longstanding and deeply serious allegations concerning collusion involving individual members of An Garda Síochána.

That raises a fundamental question: Who investigates the investigators?

British soldiers, police officers and government agencies left extensive official records. Those records can be examined repeatedly, decades after the events concerned.

Will investigators examining the actions of the Irish state and its agencies have genuinely comparable access to Irish records, witnesses and evidence?

And what happens when they do not?

Simon argues that veterans should be extremely wary of any system that promises reciprocity without showing that both sides will actually be subjected to equivalent scrutiny.

This is not an argument against investigating wrongdoing.

It argues that accountability cannot credibly operate in only one direction.

After more than half a century, veterans are entitled to ask a simple question:

If Britain is expected to open its files and investigate its own people, will the Republic of Ireland genuinely be required to do the same?

Watch or listen to the latest One More Mission podcast.

Find the full episode here:

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The organisation representing SAS veterans has issued one of its strongest warnings yet over the Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, saying it is prepared to take legal action if ministers fail to provide adequate protection for those who served.

The intervention from the Special Air Service Regimental Association (SASRA) comes as Parliament prepares to resume consideration of legislation that will reshape the system for dealing with Northern Ireland legacy cases.

SASRA says it is prepared to “do whatever it takes” to protect former soldiers from what it describes as the “manifestly unfair treatment” produced by Northern Ireland legacy processes. It has warned that, unless the Government changes course, it will mount a “robust legal challenge”.

That alone represents a significant escalation.

But the argument being made by SAS veterans goes considerably further than the treatment of those who served in Northern Ireland.

From veterans’ justice to national security

Brigadier Ed Butler, president of SASRA and a former commanding officer of 22 SAS, has warned that the consequences are already being felt among today’s Armed Forces.

According to Butler, some soldiers are being deterred from attempting SAS selection because they fear that operational decisions made today could result in investigations and legal proceedings many years into the future.

His warning is stark: “The very worst case scenario is you have a completely whittled-down special forces capability.”

He argues that personnel will become increasingly reluctant to undertake the exceptionally high-risk operations demanded of special forces if they cannot be confident that the state will stand behind lawful decisions made during those operations.

That changes the nature of the debate.

The question is no longer simply what constitutes a fair system for dealing with events that occurred during the Troubles.

It is whether the way Britain treats yesterday’s soldiers affects its ability to recruit and retain the soldiers it may need tomorrow.

Who ultimately carries responsibility?

Butler also raises a question that goes to the heart of Justice for Veterans’ concerns about historic military operations: where does responsibility ultimately lie when the state sends its Armed Forces into danger?

Special forces operations are not private ventures undertaken by individual soldiers.

Butler points out that operations in Northern Ireland and Afghanistan were meticulously planned and could ultimately be authorised at the highest levels of the military and government.

Yet, decades later, it is overwhelmingly the individuals who carried out those operations who find themselves answering questions about them.

As Butler puts it: “Ultimately the audit trail, for all these things, goes back to the very highest levels of government, and that’s where accountability sits.”

Nobody seriously argues that members of the Armed Forces should be above the law. Where genuinely new evidence of criminal wrongdoing emerges, it should be investigated.

But accountability cannot sensibly end with the person who pulled a trigger.

Military operations take place within chains of command, rules of engagement, intelligence assessments, legal advice and political authorisation. If decisions made within that system are subsequently judged to be wrong, the state cannot simply detach itself from the framework it created and leave individual veterans to bear the consequences.

A growing challenge to the Government

SASRA’s intervention also comes alongside the publication of the major Policy Exchange report, The Special Air Service in Northern Ireland: What they did, why it matters, and what is being done to them now.

Significantly, that report carries a foreword from former Armed Forces Minister Al Carns MP.

Carns makes clear that genuinely new and compelling evidence should be examined. But he draws an equally important distinction between accountability and perpetual investigation:

“No soldier should be above the law. Equally, no soldier should face endless legal jeopardy.”

And: “Accountability is not the same as perpetual investigation. Justice is not served when the process itself becomes the punishment.”

SASRA has now put forward specific demands. It wants proceedings prevented unless there is compelling new evidence, key decisions are taken outside Northern Ireland, effective independent oversight is in place, and changes are made to the relationship between the Bill and the Remedial Order.

The Government rejects the suggestion that its legislation will expose veterans to needless repeated investigation. It says there will be no prosecution of veterans for having followed the rules, that the reformed Legacy Commission will become the primary route for families seeking answers, and that the Bill will include new protections for former service personnel.

Those assurances will now be tested against the legislation itself.

The issue is becoming much bigger than Northern Ireland

The importance of Butler’s intervention lies in its connection of three issues that have too often been considered separately: Legacy, the responsibility of government for military operations, and the future effectiveness of Britain’s Armed Forces.

If serving personnel come to believe that the state may authorise dangerous operations today but leave them personally exposed to changing legal standards decades afterwards, the consequences will not remain confined to elderly Northern Ireland veterans.

They will affect the next generation's willingness to serve.

For a country that expects a very small number of people to undertake exceptionally dangerous operations on its behalf, that should concern everyone — not just veterans.

The Government therefore has more to answer than whether its Troubles Bill is technically workable. It must demonstrate that Britain can pursue truth and accountability without breaking the relationship of trust between the state and those it sends into harm’s way.

A major new report examining the role of the Special Air Service during the Northern Ireland Troubles has received the backing of former Armed Forces Minister Al Carns MP, who writes the foreword to The Special Air Service in Northern Ireland: What they did, why it matters, and what is being done to them now.

The report brings together contributions from Air Marshal Edward Stringer, Lord Faulks KC, Sir Stephen Laws KC (Hon) and Andrew Dinsmore, with a foreword by former Armed Forces Minister Al Carns MP.

The report is important because it addresses two linked questions.

First: what was the SAS actually doing in Northern Ireland?

Drawing on original interviews with SAS veterans, the report examines the operational reality of service during the Troubles: confronting a determined and heavily armed terrorist organisation, operating under political direction, supporting the civil power, and making decisions in circumstances where seconds could determine life or death.

The report argues that the SAS was deployed by successive governments as part of the state’s response to terrorism. Its members operated under the Army’s rules of engagement and the criminal law framework that existed at the time, with the objective of preventing attacks, protecting life and, where possible, making arrests rather than using lethal force.

Second: how should a democracy deal with the legacy of conflict decades later?

The report examines the growth of the modern legacy process and the impact of applying later legal interpretations to events that occurred decades earlier. It argues that veterans now face renewed investigations into decisions made in an entirely different operational and legal environment.

The central issue is not whether anyone should be above the law.

The issue is whether justice can be served by repeatedly reopening historic cases without a clear route to finality — particularly when memories have faded, witnesses have died and the legal framework has changed.

The report argues that accountability and fairness are not opposing principles. A credible legacy process must seek truth, recognise victims and families, but also treat fairly those who were sent by the state to confront violence.

It concludes with a challenge for policymakers: how to establish a process that provides answers without leaving veterans facing indefinite legal uncertainty.

For Justice for Veterans, this report represents an important contribution to a debate that has too often become polarised.

Understanding the past requires looking at the whole picture: the violence that occurred, the decisions made by governments, the experiences of victims, and the realities faced by those tasked with restoring order.

The legacy of Northern Ireland deserves nothing less than an evidence-based approach.

Read the report: The Special Air Service in Northern Ireland: What they did, why it matters, and what is being done to them now.

#JusticeForVeterans #NorthernIreland #OperationBanner #SAS #Veterans #Legacy

A new Salus Archive report has identified £495 million of spending on Northern Ireland legacy investigations, inquests, inquiries and legal processes since the Good Friday Agreement.

But after almost three decades of investigations and hundreds of millions of pounds of public money, the government still cannot say how much the entire system has cost, what it has achieved or when the process will finally end.

Northern Ireland Legacy Investigations Funding: Public Expenditure, Measurable Benefit and Opportunity Cost examines the available accounts, official figures and Freedom of Information data rather than simply accepting the large headline estimates that have circulated in the political debate.

It finds:

• £322.4 million of directly documented spending, including four public inquiries, ICRIR expenditure, identifiable legacy-inquest legal aid and Police Ombudsman support;

• £482.4 million when ten years of PSNI legacy expenditure is added;

• £495 million when separate Ministry of Defence costs identified through Freedom of Information data are included;

• A possible historic cost of £650–825 million between April 1998 and March 2026 once known gaps in the official figures are modelled.

The £650–825 million figure is an estimate, not an audited total. That uncertainty is itself part of the problem: government has never produced a complete account of what Northern Ireland’s legacy system has cost.

Allowing for inflation, the £495 million evidenced figure is worth approximately £627–665 million in 2024–25 prices. The broader historic estimate would be roughly £0.8–1.05 billion.

What did taxpayers get for the money?

The report does not argue that all legacy spending has been wasted.

Public inquiries, inquests, Police Ombudsman investigations and Operation Kenova have established facts, corrected official accounts and answered questions for some families. In some cases they have also led to acknowledgement, compensation or legal closure.

But individual successes do not prove that the system as a whole has delivered value for money.

After hundreds of millions of pounds of expenditure, there is still no complete account of the cost, no reliable cost per completed case and no consistent measure of whether the process has delivered truth, justice, reconciliation or greater public confidence.

Nor is there a single record showing which incidents have already been investigated, how often they have been examined or what would finally bring a case to an end.

Cases can pass through investigations, inquests, civil claims and judicial reviews, sometimes involving the same events and evidence repeatedly.

Legacy work is costing today’s policing

The impact is not confined to historic cases.

The PSNI estimates that legacy work is now placing an annual pressure of about £24 million on the force. The Chief Constable has compared the accumulated burden with the cost of around 400 police officers.

That does not mean Northern Ireland would automatically have 400 more officers if legacy work disappeared. But it demonstrates the scale of policing resources being absorbed by events that happened decades ago.

Courts, coroners, prosecutors, government lawyers and disclosure teams face similar pressures.

There is also a limit to the number of experienced investigators, lawyers, judges and security-cleared staff available. More money cannot simply create more of them.

How many times should the same case be investigated?

For veterans, one of the most important questions is repeated investigation.

The report does not argue that an incident should never be examined twice. An earlier investigation may have been inadequate, lacked independence or powers, or new evidence may have emerged.

But another investigation should have to be justified.

Before substantial new work begins, officials should have to establish what investigations have already taken place, why they were insufficient, what genuinely new evidence or legal question exists and what outcome would finally close the case.

A properly completed case should not simply be reopened again without new evidence, a serious defect in the previous investigation or a genuine legal requirement.

No more blank cheques

The report does not recommend simply creating another institution and transferring the same cases, staff and litigation into it.

Instead, it argues that the government should have to demonstrate what additional funding will actually achieve.

Before another multi-year funding settlement is approved, ministers should produce a proper business case showing the expected cost, workload and timetable for completing the work.

Government should also publish annual accounts showing the total cost of the legacy system, identify the pressure being placed on policing and justice bodies, improve disclosure and case management, measure results and subject performance to independent review.

Funding should continue where work is legally necessary, there is a realistic prospect of achieving something and the case can be brought to a defined conclusion.

Where those tests cannot be met, the work should be narrowed, stopped or fundamentally changed.

After almost three decades and at least £495 million of identifiable expenditure, the burden of proof should now rest with those asking taxpayers for more.

Without clear costs, measurable results and a point at which cases can finally be closed, there is a danger that further millions will simply pay to keep the legacy system running rather than deliver truth, justice or resolution.

Read the complete report on Salus Archive

The Government “remains absolutely committed” to the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which will continue its progress through Parliament as soon as possible, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Sir Chris Bryant, has announced.

Speaking following meetings with victims and survivors’ groups and veterans’ representatives, the Secretary of State said: “This week I’ve met WAVE, the Victims and Survivors’ Forum, SEFF, the Victims’ Commissioner Joe McVey, the Veterans Commissioner David Johnstone, and held a roundtable with veterans. I also visited the RUC Memorial Garden, which marks the service and sacrifice of officers, including those [who] were killed during the Troubles.

“I have wanted to sit down and listen to as many people and groups as possible, to get their perspectives and insights. These are my key observations so far. We can’t shape the future unless we deal with the past. And we have to get answers for families, including the many families of Armed Forces personnel who were killed.”

Bryant, appointed in July by Burnham, said: “I’m acutely conscious that this Bill is our last chance to properly address legacy issues and get as many answers as we can for those who are still living with the legacy of the Troubles.

“I want to ensure the Bill helps as many people impacted by the Troubles as possible get the answers they have long sought, and commands the confidence of those affected — including those who served bravely to protect law and order.”

There is still no indication of what form the Bill will now take and what amendments will be adopted.

Meanwhile, a unionist MP has called for a fresh investigation into a former IRA member, John Crawley, following his account of shooting a soldier during the Troubles in his 2022 memoir.

Call to investigate murder claim

Independent North Down MP Alex Easton said he was left feeling disappointed after writing to the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) to be told that an investigation could not be opened.

“That should not be the end of this matter,” Easton told the Belfast Telegraph. “The legislation provides a route whereby the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland can request an ICRIR investigation into a Troubles-related death.”

Mr Easton wrote to the then-Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, describing the situation as an “extraordinarily serious matter”.

Former US Marine and Provisional IRA member John Crawley, who served a 10-year prison sentence for arms smuggling, describes the shooting of a British soldier in detail in his memoir, The Yank: My Life as a Former US Marine in the IRA. His account has not been independently verified.

Crawley also recounts working with Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger to assemble an IRA arms shipment. After he was arrested aboard the gun-running trawler Marita Ann off the Kerry coast, he served ten years in prison. Following his release, he became involved in an IRA operation targeting London’s electricity infrastructure and was later sentenced in Britain to 35 years for conspiracy to cause explosions, before being released under the Good Friday Agreement.

Easton is calling for an investigation to be launched to address “serious questions which cannot be ignored”.

He asked: “Who was the British soldier Crawley describes shooting? Did that soldier survive or was he murdered? Is there evidence available today which could still lead to an investigation and prosecution?”

Crawley, who was born in New York City and moved to Ireland aged 14. At 18, he served in the US Marine Corps before returning to Northern Ireland, where he became involved with the IRA

“Despite the extraordinary account contained within his memoir, I have been unable to establish, from the information available to me, that he has ever been prosecuted for the shooting he describes.” Easton said, adding the soldier’s family “deserve to know [that] every possible avenue for establishing the full circumstances of this incident has been pursued”.

He continued: “There cannot be one standard of justice for some victims of the Troubles and another standard for those who wore the uniform of the British Army or Ulster Defence Regiment,”

Mr Easton said he will write to the new Secretary of State, Sir Chris Bryant.

A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Office said: “The ICRIR is able to investigate serious Troubles-related offences, and indeed it is currently investigating a significant number of killings of British soldiers by the IRA.

“The Troubles Bill will further strengthen its ability to obtain as much information as possible for families.

“The Secretary of State is grateful to Mr Easton for raising this case with him and will respond to his correspondence shortly.

“We would urge anyone with any further information about this appalling account to come forward.”

What is missing are the details: How many murders of soldiers are being investigated, and how will the proposed new regime be any more successful than the existing one?

Lincoln Jopp’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Criminal Investigations etc) Bill Private Member’s Bill Second Reading is scheduled for Friday 4 September 2026, the first Friday of the new parliamentary session for Private Members' Bills.

At first sight, the Bill’s long title is fairly restrained:

“A Bill to require the Secretary of State to publish proposals relating to the circumstances in which new criminal investigations, prosecutions, inquests or inquiries in respect of Troubles-related conduct carried out in Northern Ireland may be commenced…”

But Jopp has subsequently told Parliament what he is actually trying to achieve.

Speaking in the Commons on 23 June, he described his proposal as putting into law a requirement that there should be no further investigations, inquests, inquiries or prosecutions unless, in the view of a Supreme Court judge, new and compelling evidence has emerged.

“That is why, when I came tenth in the ballot for a private Member’s Bill, I took the opportunity to attempt to put in law that there should be no further investigations, inquests, inquiries or prosecutions of Northern Ireland veterans unless, in the view of a Supreme Court judge, there is new, compelling evidence,” Jopp told Parliament.

That changes the significance of the Bill.

The question the Government has not answered

Much of the argument over Northern Ireland legacy has concentrated on prosecution. Will veterans actually be prosecuted? How likely are convictions after decades have passed? Should there be immunity?

Jopp’s Bill potentially moves the argument to an earlier and more fundamental point:

When should the state be entitled to put somebody through the process again?

That matters because prosecution is not the only burden.

The process can mean being investigated again; finding legal representation; reconstructing events after several decades; being interviewed under caution; having conduct publicly questioned; and then waiting months or years for somebody to decide whether anything further should happen.

A person does not have to end up in the dock for the process itself to impose a considerable penalty.

That is why Jopp’s Bill could become an important legislative vehicle for the process-is-punishment argument.

A proposed threshold

Jopp appears to be offering an answer: new and compelling evidence, assessed by a Supreme Court judge.

Whether that is ultimately the right formulation deserves examination. There are obvious questions about precisely what would constitute “new” evidence, how “compelling” would be defined, which proceedings would fall within the test, and exactly what role a Supreme Court judge would perform.

Those questions cannot yet be answered from the Bill itself.

The Bill was formally presented on 17 June as Bill 22, but its text has still not been published on Parliament’s Bill page. Subsequent Commons business papers have continued to describe it as “Bill not yet printed.”

We should therefore distinguish carefully between what Jopp has said he intends and the precise legal machinery that eventually appears in the Bill.

But the principle he has articulated is already clear enough to matter.

The Government proposes an extensive new legacy regime. Jopp is effectively asking: What has to change before the state is entitled to investigate the same historical conduct again?

That is a much more difficult question than general appeals to “justice”, “accountability” or the interests of “victims”.

If an incident was investigated at the time, and perhaps subsequently examined again, what new evidence justifies reopening it decades later?

And who decides whether that evidence is sufficiently important to justify putting those involved through another process?

Not simply a Conservative veterans Bill

There is another interesting feature.

The parliamentary record gives the Bill a notably broad group of supporters: David Davis, Alex Burghart, James Cartlidge, Nick Timothy, Mark Francois, Jim Shannon, Ian Roome, Lewis Cocking, John Cooper, Neil Shastri-Hurst and Katie Lam.

That includes Conservatives, as well as Jim Shannon of the DUP and Ian Roome of the Liberal Democrats.

Katie Lam’s involvement is particularly interesting following her recent work in Northern Ireland.

Her documentary brought her into direct contact with people occupying very different positions within the legacy argument: victims, former terrorists, unionists, former RUC Special Branch officers and former SAS personnel.

There is therefore an opportunity to make an argument considerably more sophisticated than: “Stop prosecuting veterans.”

The stronger proposition is: When the state has already investigated an incident, what evidential and public-interest threshold must be crossed before it may put people through the process again?

That principle need not depend upon the identity of the person being investigated.

Why 4 September matters

As a Private Member’s Bill, Jopp’s proposal faces the familiar difficulty of securing parliamentary time and Government support. Its importance need not, however, depend entirely upon whether it reaches the statute book.

A Second Reading gives Jopp and his supporters an opportunity to force the Government to address the principle publicly and on the parliamentary record.

That timing matters.

The Government’s own Northern Ireland Troubles Bill remains before Parliament. Jopp’s Bill therefore provides an opportunity to ask, alongside that legislation, a question the Government has yet to answer satisfactorily: What safeguards prevent repeated historical investigation becoming punishment by process?

There is also a striking connection with Roisin Nugent’s civil litigation.

That case raises a closely related question: what is the legal and evidential justification for reopening an historical military incident when no materially new evidence has emerged?

The answer matters well beyond one case.

If the state is to reopen events 30, 40 or 50 years later, there ought to be an identifiable threshold for doing so.

Lincoln Jopp appears to be trying to put one before Parliament.

That makes 4 September worth watching very closely.

How the Private Member’s Bill process works

A Private Member’s Bill (PMB) is a Bill introduced by an MP or peer who is not acting as a government minister. It goes through essentially the same legislative stages as a Government Bill, but the politics and, above all, the allocation of parliamentary time are very different.

For a Commons PMB such as Lincoln Jopp’s, the process is:

1. Introduction / First Reading — The Bill is formally presented and receives a First Reading. There is normally no debate. The title is read out, the Bill is ordered to be printed, and a date is nominated for Second Reading. This is why a Bill can legally exist even when very little substantive text is initially visible publicly.

2. Second Reading — This is the first substantive hurdle. MPs debate the Bill's principle and purpose rather than go through its clauses line by line. At the end, the Commons decides whether the Bill should proceed. For a PMB, simply getting enough parliamentary time to reach and complete this stage is a major problem.

3. Committee Stage — If it passes Second Reading, the Bill receives detailed scrutiny. MPs consider individual clauses and amendments. A PMB would normally go to a Public Bill Committee, although other procedures are possible.

4. Report Stage — The Bill returns to the whole House. MPs who were not on the committee can propose amendments and the Commons considers the Bill as amended in committee.

5. Third Reading — The Commons considers whether to approve the Bill in its final Commons form. This is generally a shorter debate focused on the Bill as it now stands.

6. House of Lords — The process essentially starts again: First Reading, Second Reading, Committee, Report and Third Reading.

7. Consideration of amendments — If the Lords changes the Bill, it returns to the Commons. The two Houses must agree on identical wording. This can involve the familiar parliamentary “ping-pong”.

8. Royal Assent — Once both Houses have agreed the text, the King gives Royal Assent and the Bill becomes an Act.

The crucial distinction with PMBs is therefore not the formal legislative process but the probability of surviving it.

There are three principal ways Commons PMBs originate:

1. Ballot Bills get priority because MPs successful in the annual ballot receive valuable debating slots.

2. Ten Minute Rule Bills allow an MP briefly to make the case for legislation.

3. Presentation Bills can simply be formally introduced without an initial speech. The route matters enormously because parliamentary time is scarce.

Why the Second Reading date matters

PMBs are primarily considered on a limited number of Friday sittings, which produces a brutal bottleneck.

A Bill listed first on a PMB Friday has a reasonable opportunity to receive a debate. Bills further down the Order Paper may never be reached. Debate can consume the available time, and opponents can sometimes prevent a Bill progressing without having to defeat it in a straightforward division.

Government attitude is particularly important.

A PMB without government support can become law, but in practical terms, a Bill requiring substantial legislation, expenditure, or administrative machinery faces a very difficult path if the Government actively opposes it. Conversely, governments sometimes allow, facilitate or effectively adopt PMBs they find useful.

There is another important hurdle: Money.

If implementation requires public expenditure, a Money Resolution may be necessary before relevant committee proceedings can progress. Only the Government can initiate one. That gives the Government considerable practical control even after a PMB has secured Second Reading.

What this means for Jopp’s Bill

The significance of 4 September 2026 is therefore greater than merely “the next stage”.

Jopp has already crossed the First Reading threshold. Second Reading is where MPs are asked, in effect:

Do we agree with the principle of what this Bill is trying to achieve sufficiently to allow Parliament to examine the detail?

Passing Second Reading would not mean Parliament had enacted Jopp’s proposed policy. It would mean the Commons had agreed that the proposal deserved to proceed into detailed legislative scrutiny.

And that distinction is particularly interesting given the long title:

A Bill to require the Secretary of State to publish proposals relating to the circumstances in which new criminal investigations, prosecutions, inquests or inquiries in respect of Troubles-related conduct carried out in Northern Ireland may be commenced; and for connected purposes.

If the Bill requires the Secretary of State to publish proposals defining when new Troubles-related investigations, prosecutions, inquests or inquiries may begin, the Second Reading debate potentially becomes something larger than a vote on Jopp’s particular mechanism.

It gives MPs an opportunity to debate the underlying proposition:

Should there be a defined threshold governing when the state can reopen or initiate another Troubles-related process?

That could matter politically even if the Bill ultimately dies.

In fact, with PMBs it is useful to separate legislative success from political success.

A PMB can fail to reach Royal Assent yet succeed in forcing a minister to state government policy, exposing an unanswered question, securing a government undertaking, attracting cross-party support, generating amendments to later government legislation, or establishing an idea that the Government subsequently adopts.

For veterans, therefore, 4 September should not be viewed simply as “will Jopp’s Bill become law?”

The more immediate question is whether the Second Reading debate can force MPs and ministers to address the substantive issue Jopp has put on the table:

Folks are asking why the battle over Northern Ireland veterans and legacy lawfare has not captured public attention — academics and political science types call it “public salience” — on anything like the scale achieved by the campaign surrounding PC Andrew Harper.

It is a reasonable question. And, a comparison reveals something important about the problem veterans face.

The veterans campaign has not gone unnoticed. For example, more than 200,000 people signed the petition to protect Northern Ireland veterans, securing a Westminster debate. The issue has attracted support from veterans’ organisations, regimental associations, senior retired officers and parliamentarians. It has been aired in articles, letters to editors, and questions in Parliament.

But that is different from becoming a national cause understood instinctively by millions.

The PC Harper case has almost every characteristic required for one.

Andrew Harper was a 28-year-old police officer killed in horrific circumstances while doing his job. There was a readily understood injustice, identifiable offenders and a clear argument about punishment. His widow, Lissie Harper, could put a name, face and voice to the campaign. She could appear on television, speak to newspapers, address politicians and tell Andrew’s story repeatedly.

The proposition required almost no specialist knowledge: This happened. It was wrong. The law should change.

The Northern Ireland veterans issue is almost the opposite communications problem.

There isn’t one Andrew Harper

There are potentially hundreds or thousands of veterans affected by investigations, reinvestigations, inquests, civil proceedings and continuing legal uncertainty. The alleged injustice is often procedural rather than dramatic. The relevant law is complicated. Northern Ireland’s history is contested. Cases stretch backwards over decades. And the Government can deploy the superficially compelling response that nobody should be above the law.

But there is an even more fundamental difference.

Some of the people with the most powerful stories cannot safely tell them.

That is particularly important for former Special Forces personnel.

An SAS veteran involved in legacy proceedings may have been granted anonymity by a court. Speaking publicly about his experiences — even anonymously — can raise the question of whether that anonymity remains justified. There may also be operational security considerations, restrictions on what can be discussed and straightforward legal advice not to talk while proceedings remain possible.

The very thing that conventional public relations would normally demand — put the human being at the centre and let him tell his story — could therefore expose the person the campaign is trying to protect.

That produces an extraordinary communications paradox.

The veterans best placed to demonstrate why the system may be unjust may be precisely the veterans least able to explain publicly what has happened to them.

Compare the two communications environments

The Harper campaign can proceed:

Person → name → face → story → injustice → remedy.

A legacy case involving a former SAS soldier may instead appear to the public as:

Anonymous veteran → letter designation → incident decades ago → complicated legal proceedings → disputed allegation of injustice.

The protections necessary for the veteran simultaneously remove many of the ingredients that make a story travel.

That means the answer cannot simply be: we need veterans to tell their stories.

For many Operation Banner veterans that remains possible and valuable. But it cannot safely be the foundation of a campaign dealing with those most exposed to legacy proceedings.

Nor can the answer simply be more publicity for “veterans against lawfare”.

Lawfare is an argument. Harper is a story.

The challenge is therefore to tell the veterans story without requiring legally vulnerable veterans to tell it themselves.

That means starting with what can safely be established.

Court judgments. Contemporary documents. Parliamentary records. Historical footage. Maps and timelines. Statistics. Official reports. Journalists, historians and lawyers. Commanders and veterans who can speak without exposing themselves or former colleagues.

The public record can sometimes tell a remarkably human story without identifying the individual at its centre.

Consider the Nugent legal action arising from the Coagh shootings.

Its significance to the ordinary reader isn’t principally an argument about Article 2, judicial review or the Yellow Card. Those things matter, but they are not where the story should begin.

The human predicament is much simpler.

A soldier had seconds in which to assess an apparent lethal threat and decide whether to fire. Decades later, those seconds became the subject of an inquest and further legal proceedings. In refusing leave for judicial review, Mr Justice McAlinden’s findings provide an unusually stark account of the realities of making such decisions under operational conditions.

You don’t need the soldier sitting in front of a television camera to understand the question that raises:

How should a democratic state judge, decades afterwards, decisions it required young soldiers to make in circumstances of extraordinary danger?

Once somebody understands that question, the law becomes relevant.

The bigger picture

There is also a much larger story that has been neglected.

More than a quarter of a million members of the Armed Forces served in Northern Ireland during Operation Banner. Hundreds were killed by paramilitaries. Yet for much of today’s British population, particularly younger generations, the operation is either barely understood or remembered primarily through a relatively small number of controversial incidents.

That matters because the public is being asked to form opinions about the treatment of Operation Banner veterans without necessarily understanding what Operation Banner actually was.

So there are really two tasks.

One is to scrutinise what is happening to veterans through the legacy system.

The other is to recover the history of the generation that served.

The second may ultimately make the first easier to understand.

That requires serious public history rather than propaganda: archive material, contemporary records, carefully reconstructed incidents, testimony from those who can safely speak, accounts of soldiers who were killed, and explanations of the operational environment in which decisions were made.

It should acknowledge mistakes, controversy and legitimate disagreement. The purpose is not to tell people that the Army was always right.

It is to show people what these men were asked to do, the circumstances in which they were expected to do it, and what happened afterwards.

There is an important distinction here between recording history and publishing it.

Some veterans may be able to give detailed testimony for an archive under tightly controlled conditions, with restrictions or lengthy embargoes, even though publication would currently be impossible or unwise. Their history need not be lost merely because it cannot safely be broadcast today.

Public communication can meanwhile rely upon the material that can responsibly be published.

That leads back to the Harper comparison.

Why hasn’t the veterans campaign produced its equivalent of Lissie Harper?

Perhaps because, in some of its most important cases, it cannot.

A campaigner in the Harper case can stand outside Parliament, appear on television, speak to newspapers and permanently attach her identity to the cause.

A former SAS soldier facing legacy proceedings may need to do almost precisely the opposite.

He may need to remain unnamed.

He may be unable to discuss what happened.

His former colleagues may be unable to corroborate him publicly.

His lawyers may advise him not to speak.

Security considerations may persist decades after his service.

And publicity itself could potentially jeopardise protections he currently possesses.

That isn’t a minor public-relations inconvenience.

It is one of the central communications problems confronting the veterans campaign.

The people whose experiences could turn an abstract argument about lawfare into a compelling human story may be unable to tell those stories themselves.

The answer is therefore not to search for a veterans’ equivalent of PC Harper.

It is to develop a form of storytelling capable of overcoming the fact that, in this unusual battle, some of its most important protagonists must remain invisible.

Where Veterans can make a difference

There is another consequence of all this.

If the veterans’ battle is inherently difficult to prosecute through mass media, veterans should not assume that national PR can do the job for them.

That makes engagement with MPs at constituency level particularly important.

A veteran does not need to become a national campaigner to influence his Member of Parliament. He does not need to appear on television, attract thousands of social media followers, or persuade a newspaper to tell his story.

He can engage as a constituent.

That changes the communications equation.

National PR requires a public story. Constituency engagement does not.

An MP can meet veterans privately, hear about their experience of Operation Banner and understand their concerns about the legacy system without those veterans becoming public representatives of the campaign.

Nor does the veteran sitting opposite the MP necessarily have to be somebody currently facing proceedings. Indeed, there may be very good reasons why such individuals should not participate.

Other Operation Banner veterans can explain the environment in which they served, what was expected of them, why decisions sometimes had to be made in seconds and what the continuing pursuit of former colleagues means to the wider veteran community.

That also turns an abstract political issue into a constituency issue.

The veteran ceases to be somebody described in a briefing paper as “a former soldier potentially affected by legacy proceedings”.

He becomes one of the MP’s constituents.

That distinction matters.

PR still has a role. It can establish facts, challenge arguments, produce material that veterans and MPs can use, attract journalists’ attention and keep an issue in the public domain.

But it should support human engagement rather than substitute for it.

If the peculiar circumstances of the Northern Ireland legacy battle make it difficult to create a small number of national figureheads, the answer may be to reverse the model: Not one public campaigner trying to reach 650 MPs, but veterans across the country engaging their own MPs.

That will never generate the visible numbers of a million-signature petition.

But visible numbers are not necessarily the only measure that matters.

A few hundred MPs who have actually sat opposite an Operation Banner veteran from their own constituency, heard what he has to say and understood why the issue matters may ultimately be considerably more valuable than another burst of national publicity.

Ready to tell your story?

Begin to make a difference; visit: Salus Archive

In June 1991, an IRA active service unit arrived in Coagh, County Tyrone, intending to murder a man they believed to be a UDR soldier. He was actually an undercover soldier being used as the intended target in a security-force operation.

When a gunman began to emerge from the IRA vehicle with an AK-type rifle, soldiers opened fire. Three IRA members were killed.

More than thirty years later, following an extensive Article 2 inquest, the daughter of one of the dead men sought judicial review of the coroner’s findings concerning Soldier B.

Mr Justice McAlinden refused leave.

His judgment was unusually forthright. He described the attempt to analyse Soldier B’s eight shots individually as “ludicrous” and “utterly divorced from the reality” of an engagement lasting perhaps one or two seconds. He concluded that the challenge was really an attempt to reopen the merits of the coroner’s findings “under the guise of a judicial review” — and expressly questioned why legal aid had been provided to fund it.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

The case went to the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal.

The appellate court moderated some of McAlinden’s language, but largely upheld the substance of his reasoning. It rejected retrospective “freeze-frame” analysis of the shooting, upheld the approach to Article 2 and the Yellow Card, and concluded that the case would have failed on its merits even if leave for judicial review had been granted.

And on the question of public money, the Court of Appeal made an important observation of its own.

It concluded that the challenge essentially amounted to disagreement with the coroner’s findings and said that this was “not an effective use of public funds even when article 2 is engaged.”

This single case does not establish that legacy litigation generally is abusive or that legal aid for legacy cases is generally being improperly awarded.

What it does provide is something much harder to dismiss: a concrete example in which a High Court judge questioned the provision of legal aid and a three-judge Court of Appeal subsequently concluded that the litigation was not an effective use of public funds.

The latest Salus Briefing examines the judgments in detail: what happened during those two seconds in Coagh, what was challenged more than three decades later, what McAlinden actually decided, and — crucially — what survived scrutiny in the Court of Appeal.

Read the full Salus Briefing Note: When Judicial Review Becomes an Ineffective Use of Public Funds

The argument over Northern Ireland’s past is increasingly conducted through competing narratives: about what happened, why it happened, and who should now be held accountable.

There is value, therefore, in going back to those who were actually there.

In this new documentary for Outpost Studios, Katie Lam MP travels through Northern Ireland and listens to people whose experiences and perspectives differ profoundly. The film does not remove those disagreements. It puts them in the same frame and allows viewers to hear them for themselves.

The testimony of former members of the security forces is particularly important. Decisions made during the Troubles are now being examined decades later in courtrooms, inquiries and political debate.

Any serious assessment of those decisions has to understand the circumstances in which soldiers and police officers were actually operating — not merely how those circumstances appear with the benefit of hindsight.

Whatever your view of the Government’s current legacy proposals, understanding that reality matters.

Watch: Katie Lam MP — The Troubles
Watch the documentary on Outpost Studios