“As Boris Johnson boasted, the Legacy Act delivers an amnesty to members of the British security services for all the crimes they committed during the Troubles.”
By Geoff Bell, Labour for Irish Unity
Northern Ireland will not be an issue for the leading British parties or in British constituencies in the general election. That is how things usually are, a product of the now traditional bipartisanship on Ireland between Labour and the Conservative and Unionist Party.
And yet, this time, there is a difference, and there is a reason why voters should examine Irish policies. Most notably because, at the-start of May, one of the most shameful pieces of legislation in modern Tory Britain came into effect.
This was the Legacy and Reconciliation Act, dealing with state criminality during the Northern Ireland Troubles. As is often the case with the case with such terminology, it has the opposite consequences to what is suggested: the legacy it enacts is poisonous, the reconciliation is non-existent.
It means that many of the Troubles victims and/or their relatives will never know the circumstances of the deaths or injuries they or their loved ones suffered. In particular, those in which the British security forces were involved, either directly or indirectly when they colluded with loyalist sectarian gangs.
The Act prohibits future legal investigations into such occurrences and even bans inquests into the relevant deaths. Consequently, as Boris Johnson boasted, the Legacy Act delivers an amnesty to members of the British security services for all the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
Already a Belfast court has ruled the Act illegal. Already the Irish Government is taking the British to the European Court of Human Rights over the Act. Already 14 inquests dealing with 32 deaths have just been cut short because of the new law. In total a total of 38 inquests linked to 76 deaths have been scrapped. Another four inquests dealing with five deaths were never even allocated to a coroner.
It so happened that just before the Act became law, an international human rights inquiry delivered a report into precisely what the Government is seeking to cover up. This was the work of the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights and its panel of legal experts, police officers and academics. The title of Its 200 page report – Bitter Legacy: State Impunity in the the Northern Ireland Conflict – gives a flavour of its findings.
Among these were one that said the British government “did not conduct fair and effective investigations” into state killings during the Troubles. The inquiry investigated 54 of these and found that that the government operated a “widespread systematic and systemic practice of impunity”, protecting the security forces from sanction during the conflict.
It found that complaints of torture and ill treatment by the security forces were not investigated. It established that collusion between the state forces and loyalist paramilitaries was “clearly regarded by the British state as a useful tactic”.
They found investigations of murder and serious loyalists’ paramilitary crimes were regularly obstructed by the police Special Branch.
Among its general conclusions was one that said, “The failure of the British state to provide accountability, truth, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition has and continues to have consequences on victims, relatives, communities and societies at large”.
The report’s authors called for the immediate repeal of the Legacy Act, which, it emphasised was, part of this historic process of criminality and cover up.
The good news is that the Labour Party and its Northern Ireland spokesperson Hilary Benn have said they will indeed repeal the Act. So, for those looking for reasons to vote for the party on 4 June, this is encouraging, although Benn has said Labour will introduce its own legislation and he has not specified what this will involve.
Nevertheless, it is reassuring that Labour seems willing to address responsibilities for the past, which, of course, includes actions of its own past governments in Northern Ireland. But it also needs to think about future responsibilities. In particular there is every indication that the party leadership will continue to deny the relevance or justice of a referendum on the existence or otherwise of the divisive Irish border.
Labour even refuses to set the criteria for calling such a poll. It is a weakness of the Good Friday Agreement that it stipulates that only the British Secretary of State will decide when the border poll is called.
It is likely is that during the lifetime of the next British government, the pressure for a positive move in this direction will increase. The growth in support for Sinn Fein, North and South, is one such pressure. The many conversations in many communities throughout Ireland on what a new united should look like is another.
The British Labour needs to pay heed to all of this and to act positively. Otherwise. it too could become of Britain’s “bitter legacy” in Ireland.
- Geoff Bell is an executive member of Labour for Irish Unity and the author ‘The Twilight of Unionism‘ – you can order a copy from Verso book here.
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