Boris Johnson plays the fool with great genius but his statement in Westminster that his legacy proposals will allow Northern Ireland to “draw a line under the Troubles” is fooling no one.
As the SDLP MP Claire Hanna astutely pointed out, it is the perpetrators who won’t let victims move on. And when it comes to the Troubles in Northern Ireland the British government is one of those perpetrators.
The proposal to bring in legislation which effectively creates an amnesty for all murderers whether they wore a beret or balaclava is a slap in the face to every single victim who was killed during the Troubles. It’s like trampling over their graves, removing their headstones and denying their very existence.
Survivors and those left behind are angry and rightly so. This is a shameful and shameless proposal by an unprincipled Tory government.
Brandon Lewis, the talking head for the Northern Ireland Office, should be made to sit across from the widows, widowers and parentless children left grieving by murderers, whether they were in the IRA, UDA or British Army, and explain his sickening and stomach churning proposed legislation. But Lewis won’t. He appears to have about as much a feel for Northern Ireland as Kim Jong-un does for democracy.
I have to admit to feeling a bit uneasy about Colum Eastwood using parliamentary privilege to name Soldier F. But in the face of the actions of this dishonourable government I believe Eastwood was more than justified. Anyone charged with breaking the law in Northern Ireland (or in any other place) by killing innocent civilians does not deserve anonymity, let alone an amnesty.
The attack on Colum Eastwood by former defence minister Johnny Mercer was petulant and pettish. Mercer comes across as decent, pleasant and naive. And it seems the MP for Plymouth Moor View now dislikes his own government’s proposals. In his mind it puts soldiers in the same category as paramilitaries as both will get amnesty under the statue of limitations.
Well wake up and smell the cordite, Mr Mercer. Anyone who kills unlawfully is in the same category and should face the same rigours of the law. A uniform does not grant automatic immunity.
The former director of public prosecutions in Northern Ireland, Barra McGrory, has described the British plans as “shocking and questionable”. And he is 100 per cent right.
The proposals are completely flawed. Across the world cold cases are being reopened and leading to successful prosecutions. US police recently solved a 55 year old murder following a deathbed confession of someone who gave an alibi to the murderer.
In Strathclyde this year new DNA evidence led to the conviction of a killer who had escaped justice for 35 years. In another case advanced technology called touch DNA allowed forensic scientists to extract evidence from a granite rock leading to a conviction 25 years after the crime.
Conscience, science, technology and confessions can all lead to successful prosecutions. Even during Operation Kenova, the former chief constable John Boutcher said that legacy investigations can lead to success if done properly. Boutcher has described the government proposals as a miscalculation.
But the real injury being done by Johnson and Lewis is the hurt being heaped on those who have carried the greatest burden - survivors and the families of victims. They don’t need sugar coated words with tea and sympathy.
They are sustained by the slimmest of hopes that one day justice may be done. Unless one has walked in their shoes, felt their pain and carried their heartache, no-one has the right to tell them to suck it up and move on.
Look at the dignity of Breege Quinn, still searching for truth since the brutal murder of her son, Paul. She has not let time quench her thirst for justice. Nor should we. Victims matter and justice denied to them is denied to us all.
