Starmer shrugs off concerns over betrayal of veterans

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Sir Keir insists his troubling Northern Ireland bill will not lead vexatious litigation.

A veteran’s pointed media comment, the SAS Regimental Association’s threat of legal action, and a plea from the Opposition benches all called on Sir Keir Starmer to personally engage with his government’s Troubles Bill.

The best he could come up with was a throw-away line as he boarded a flight to South Africa, reported in the Daily Express.

“I’m absolutely confident that there will be no vexatious prosecutions, and that is because the legislation carefully sets out the balance that must be struck, and particular protections for veterans who served, in terms of the approach, the process and the protections we have put in place for them,” said Starmer.

“So I am absolutely clear that we have got the right balance in the legislation, and there will not be vexatious prosecutions.”

Sir Keir may be expressing genuine beliefs. Equally, maybe he has been poorly briefed on the Northern Ireland Office’s deeply flawed plan (and be under no illusions about the real architects behind this Bill).

Or maybe, to quote his own Veterans Minister, Louis Sandher-Jones, it is he who is “naïve”, not the veterans, among them a growing number of senior officers, nine of whom have already written to Starmer, pointing out the threat to national security.

This is a many-layered issue that demands more than an off-the-cuff comment.

Clumsily but aptly named the “Troubles Bill”, it creates more trouble for veterans than solace for victims or support for the British military, past, present and future.

The legislation allows more than 20 inquests to be reopened – including the infamous Loughgall operation – without requiring new evidence.

That bears repeating: No new evidence.

We are talking about cases that have already been examined, investigated, and closed, which could now be dragged back into public view simply to satisfy a political demand for…insert your own weasly words here.

Reopening historic cases without new evidence is, by definition, a vexatious process.

It exposes elderly veterans to renewed legal jeopardy and media scrutiny, not because justice demands it, but because the government wants to appear to act amid political pressure from those who lost the armed campaign but now seek to win the narrative war.

Be in no doubt: The punishment is the process.

No Balance Between Soldier and Terrorist

Ministers talk as if there is some neat middle ground between those who served under the Crown and those who planted bombs in pubs, shopping streets, and police stations. There is not.

British soldiers operated under the Queen’s Regulations, rules of engagement and a clear chain of command. Their actions were subject to military law, to the civil courts, and to repeated scrutiny during and after the conflict. And, they did a sterling job.

By contrast, Northern Ireland’s paramilitaries ran murder gangs and protection rackets behind a thin veil of political rhetoric. They targeted civilians, disappeared victims, and maintained torture sites. Let’s not kid ourselves: Some were true believers or had genuine grievances, which could have been resolved politically, but that does not justify cowards inflicting decades of pain on a nation, wrapping heinous crimes in a flag of convenience.

Treating these two groups as morally equivalent parties in a “conflict” is not balance; it is a fundamental category error. Reopening an old case without fresh evidence encourages the falsehood that “both sides were the same.” It implies moral equivalence between those who stopped attacks and those who planned them.

That is not truth-seeking. It is historical revisionism.

The Message to Today’s Armed Forces

The implications reach far beyond the generation that served in Northern Ireland.

Young men and women considering a military career can see what is happening. They are invited to risk their lives overseas. The understanding is that, decades later, a future government may reopen closed cases—not because new facts have emerged, or a crime was committed, but because political convenience demands a show of “accountability.”

Trust is the foundation of military service. Recruits must believe that if they act lawfully, under orders and within the rules of engagement, the state will stand behind them. This Bill erodes that trust. It says, in effect: “You may be cleared today — but not forever. The covenant is provisional. If the politics shift, even years from now, we reserve the right to put you back in the dock.”

In other words: Not guilty until we change our minds.

With the armed forces already facing a recruitment crisis, that is reckless. It harms morale, erodes retention, and weakens national defence.

Yes, PM, Mr Healy, Mr Benn — and we see you slinking in the background, Lord Hermer. Nine generals have made it clear: this is a threat to national security. The need has not been greater since the end of the Cold War.

A Gift to Those Who Used Violence

There is another consequence. Reopening cases such as Loughgall — where eight IRA members were killed in 1987 while attempting a major bomb attack on a police station — without new evidence hands a propaganda victory to those who waged terror.

Legal action on behalf of those terrorists’ families begs the question: did the terrorists give a toss about their families’ future? They certainly cared nothing for other people’s lives.

Terrorists and their apologists will present every new inquest as proof that the state itself doubts the legitimacy of its own actions. They will point to grey-haired veterans in the witness box and claim that “war crimes” are finally being acknowledged. Meanwhile, many of their own leadership enjoy political respectability, comfort letters or royal pardons.

In the long struggle over how the IRA’s murderous campaign is remembered, this Bill tilts the scales in precisely the wrong direction. It suggests that the price of “reconciliation” is to treat the young soldier and the clandestine bomber as essentially interchangeable figures in a tragic but morally neutral “conflict”.

That is not reconciliation. It is a demolition of the moral framework that distinguishes imperfect law enforcement from deliberate terrorism.

Justice Requires Evidence, Not Theatre

None of this is an argument for impunity. Where credible new evidence of genuine wrongdoing emerges — whether against a veteran or a former paramilitary — it must be investigated. The rule of law demands nothing less.

But there is a clear line between following new evidence and endlessly relitigating old cases to appease interest groups. This Bill steps over that line. It creates the conditions for open-ended legal harassment of men who made split-second decisions in circumstances most civilians can barely imagine, and whose actions have already been examined by the authorities of the day.

Martin Luther King Jr warned that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Allowing the process to be weaponised against veterans teaches a dangerous lesson. Service to the state, in the end, will not be honoured — it will be second-guessed whenever it suits those in power.

Withdraw or Rewrite

If the Prime Minister’s assurances are to mean anything, the Bill must be changed.

At a minimum, any reopening of historic cases should be strictly contingent on genuinely new and credible evidence, not on the desire to demonstrate “balance” in the abstract. There must be clear statutory safeguards against repeated investigations and fishing expeditions. And there must be an explicit rejection in law and in language of any moral equivalence between those who upheld the Queen’s peace and those who sought to destroy it by terror.

Better still, the government should withdraw the current proposals. They should return with legislation that protects the integrity of past investigations, supports victims of terrorism, and provides legal certainty for veterans who have already been cleared.

If it refuses, this government will own the consequences: a further collapse in recruitment, a deeper sense of betrayal among veterans, and a symbolic victory for those who used violence against the Crown.

A state that cannot or will not defend its own defenders invites future danger. The Troubles Bill, as it stands, does exactly that.