From “Illegal” to “Unworkable”: The Downward Spiral of Labour’s Legacy Act Language

If veterans now need protection from endless legal process, why were existing protections dismantled before replacements were in place?

Fred Thomas MP’s recent comments on the Legacy debate reveal the increasingly difficult position many Labour MPs now find themselves in.

On the one hand, there is growing acknowledgement that elderly veterans should not face disproportionate, repeated, and effectively endless legal process decades after service in Northern Ireland.

On the other hand, the Government continues to advance legislation that many veterans believe will do precisely that.

The contradiction is becoming harder to ignore.

In his recent statement, Fred Thomas correctly recognises a reality veterans have warned about for years:

“It’s not the fear of conviction… it’s the fear of spending years of energy and effort defending themself in court.”

That point matters.

Because the central issue in much of the Legacy debate has never simply been conviction. It has been process itself.

The punishment increasingly becomes:

• The investigation

• The uncertainty

• The reputational damage

• The financial strain

• The psychological burden

• The reopening of events from half a century ago under entirely different political conditions

Many veterans believe that distinction is still poorly understood inside Westminster.

But there is another problem.

On 21 January 2026, Fred Thomas voted for the Government’s Remedial Order.

That order dismantled key parts of the existing 2023 Legacy Act framework before replacement safeguards had been fully defined, scrutinised, or enacted.

Then, on 27 April 2026, when the Government moved the new Troubles Bill into the next parliamentary session through a carry-over motion, he did not vote either way.

That sequence matters politically because Labour’s language around the 2023 Act has steadily shifted.

First, the Act was described as: “Illegal”

Then: “Unlawful”

Then: “Non-compliant”

And now increasingly: “Unworkable”

Those are not the same things.

After the Dillon ruling, the original sweeping political claims about the Act’s legality became much harder to sustain in absolute terms. The Court’s objections were narrower and more specific than much of the public rhetoric suggested, particularly around immunity arrangements and procedural restrictions.

Which raises a legitimate question the Government still has not properly answered:

What exactly was so fundamentally “unworkable” about the 2023 framework that it could not have been repaired through targeted amendment?

If immunity provisions were flawed, they could be amended.

If investigative safeguards were insufficient, they could be strengthened.

If oversight mechanisms required reform, Parliament could reform them.

Instead, the Government chose near-total legislative replacement while simultaneously asking veterans to trust that “protections” will emerge later in the process.

That is where confidence begins to collapse.

Because, from the perspective of many veterans, the practical sequence appears to be:

• Remove existing protections first

• Promise revised protections later

• Ask affected individuals to trust the political process in the meantime

That may make sense inside Westminster procedure.

It looks very different to ageing former soldiers, police officers, intelligence personnel, and their families who have already spent years navigating shifting political language, changing legal frameworks, and repeated reassurances.

None of this means there should be immunity from wrongdoing.

But there is an increasing sense that the debate is drifting away from principles of finality, proportionality, and historical reality, and towards a system in which process becomes perpetual.

That is why the language matters.

“Illegal” carries one implication.

“Unworkable” carries another entirely.

And if the argument has now shifted from legality to workability, ministers should explain clearly why amendment was impossible before dismantling the existing framework.