Sir David Davis Slams 'Two-Tier Justice' in Northern Ireland Legacy Debate

MP accuses Labour of using human rights to 'appease Ireland' and rewrite history ahead of Westminster debate tirggered by petition with over 170,000 signatures.

On GB News ahead of tomorrow’s debate triggered by a petition with over 170,000 signatures, Sir David Davis MP accused Labour and, singling out the Attorney General Lord Hermer, of using human rights as an excuse to repeal the Legacy Act.

“But what they’re also doing, frankly, is appeasing Ireland and appeasing a number of people who want to rewrite history,” said Sir David.

“The IRA cannot represent murdering nearly 2000 people as anything other than a horror, so what they are trying to do is to drag us down to the same level, trying to say that our soldiers were running an assassination policy.”

The truth, he said, was soldiers were making split-second decisions.

Sir David examined three key cases — Coagh, Clonoe, and Loughgall.

“In each of them, the IRA were trying to carry out murders, trying to assassinate an individual UDR UDR officer, or trying to blow up a police station, or trying to machine gun a police station,” said Sir David.

"In each case, they were carrying out murders or trying to, and the army intervened, and in, as I say, making split-seconddecisions, a number of the IRA were killed, and now that's, that's how, that's what happens if you start a civil war, you know, and you can't apply sort of conventional human rights rules to this. People make decisions in a hurry."

Hillary Benn, Northern Ireland Secretary, will respond for the Government at tomorrow’s debate.

"My hunch is he's not going to have an answer,” said Sir David.

“The simple truth is, what they should have done right back at the beginning, what Blair should have done, is have a truth and reconciliation process like the South Africans had, he didn't.

"He just basically exonerated, pardoned all of the murderers and left our soldiers hanging. We've got to put that right, as I've never seen such a stark example of two-tier justice, of politically driven justice. What is it?"

"The government's approach is one that says this is a human rights issue. I don't. Really, there's nobody who's fought harder for human rights in the Commons on either side of the House than me, but I don't think it is. I think it's politically driven."

Sir David emphasised that he does not criticise Lord Hermer for representing the likes of terrorists in the past.

“No, what I’m a critic of is using a human rights excuse to destroy the retirements of people who are heroic, patriotic, fought with skill and courage to defend us,” he said.

“And by the way, one of the effects of these operations was the murder rate in Northern Ireland went down dramatically afterwards. Hundreds of people [were] being killed in Armagh and East Tyrone and so on and Belfast before then after these operations.Frankly, when the killers were dead, the death rate went down. The death rate amongst innocent people went down. Trying to wrap that up as a human rights issue on behalf of the killers — frankly, the murderers — who were who themselves killed, in my view, is a misuse of human rights.”

Sir David was asked if tomorrow’s debate could force the government’s hand and whether he had the numbers.

“No, no, and it will not be decisive,” he admitted, “This is about the general public. If you think, where do our soldiers come from? You know, two world wars, they were won by mostly young men and young women as well from the industrial heartland of Britain, from Leeds and Bradford, from Kingsley, from Wigan, from Birmingham. You know, these places are now littered with what we used to call red wall seats. Red wall seats were majorities of a few hundred or maybe 1000 or so.”

With over two million veterans in the UK, he said: “Many of them live in those seats. It’s for them to say to their MP, ‘Look, if you want me to vote for you next time, you’ve got to make sure that I, my family, my colleagues, my comrades, get proper justice — and this is not proper justice.’”

Watch the interview here: