Legal action, boycotts and growing anger at Legacy betrayal, but will Starmer listen?

Former Parachute Regiment Lt Col Simon Barry backs the SAS Association’s legal challenge and boycott threat — then turns the question outward: will other associations stand with them?

In the latest episode of the justiceforveterans.uk One More Mission podcast, Simon Barry does not treat the row over the Troubles Bill as a technical dispute. He presents it as a test of resolve and of whether veteran associations are prepared to move from complaint to action.

Barry’s starting point is that the argument is no longer simply about what ministers say the Bill does.

It is about what veterans believe it will do in practice: reopen cases, weaken protections, and leave men exposed to a process that can be repeated without a real end.

The phrase now shaping the whole debate is, in effect, “the process is the punishment.”

Barry refers to a Sunday Telegraph report that a group of former Army chiefs has accused Sir Keir Starmer’s Government of having “no moral backbone” over its “grotesquely unfair” pursuit of Troubles veterans.

The same report went on to say that SAS veterans are preparing an unprecedented revolt against potential “show trials”, by boycotting inquest hearings should key changes not be made to Labour’s bill.

Barry says this is a real shift from the SAS Regimental Association (SASRA). Not just criticism. Not just private lobbying. But legal action and the threat of a boycott.

SASRA had already sent a letter of intended action to Hilary Benn if the bill proceeds in its current form.

By adding a boycott, Barry makes clear that a line is being drawn.

Barry backs that position without hesitation. He argues that if veterans have lost confidence in the fairness of the process, then refusing to cooperate is not some dramatic flourish but a lawful and rational response.

Silence, he says, is not an evasion of scrutiny. It is a refusal to keep feeding a system that recycles old cases and treats veterans as the only participants obliged to play by the rules.

The wider question is whether others will follow.

Barry says the Parachute Regiment stands shoulder to shoulder with the SAS. On that point, he is explicit. But he is also realistic about the wider landscape.

The Army veteran world is tribal, uneven, and not every association yet seems to believe this will land on its own doorstep.

Some, he suggests, have not paid the matter the attention it deserves because it is not yet their members most obviously in the frame.

Even so, he dismisses any suggestion that veterans more broadly are unbothered.

He points to visible protest, cross-cap-badge support, and a wider mood of anger that extends beyond formal structures.

It is really about whether the associations will remain in the familiar posture of concern and observation, or whether more of them will come out openly in support of the SAS position.

Barry does not pretend that every regimental body will organise action itself.

His point is simpler and more practical: associations should at least ensure that their members are informed so they can act.

That fits the role of justiceforveterans.uk as a catalyst rather than a command structure: a repository, a rallying point, and a source of usable material for local initiative.

In that sense, it is not really about whether one association has spoken.

It is about whether others will now.

And Barry’s answer is unmistakable: they should.

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Listen to the full podcast here: