Katie Lam is a shadow Home Office minister and MP for Weald of Kent.
On the morning of June 3rd 1991, three members of the IRA drove a stolen car into the small village of Coagh. It was their intention to murder a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, a British Army regiment made up of local recruits from Northern Ireland.
On reaching the village, the car stopped. One of the men got out of the car, and pointed an assault rifle at the person that he believed to be their target – but who was, in fact, a member of the SAS in disguise.
Believing that the decoy’s life was in immediate danger, SAS soldiers, hidden on the first floor of a nearby hotel, opened fire on the three IRA men. All three were killed.
Investigation of the crime scene showed that two of those men – Lawrence McNally and Michael Ryan – were armed with assault rifles. The third man, Tony Doris, was not armed – which the SAS soldiers who carried out the ambush could not have known.
The three IRA men who were killed that day had set out to murder a part-time soldier. The actions of the SAS were designed to prevent that murder from happening, and they succeeded.
That operation happened before I was even born. Yet, until just a few weeks ago, the soldiers who took part in it were still being subjected to legal harassment for their actions that day. More than three decades later, lawyers with no specialist knowledge of military operations were being asked to rule on whether those soldiers had behaved in accordance with human rights law. Fortunately, in this case, the Court of Appeal determined that the SAS had acted lawfully – but other veterans have not been so lucky.
Since the ratification of the Belfast Agreement in 1998, dozens of veterans who served in the British military, and in the police, have faced legal challenges for their actions in Northern Ireland. Typically, these challenges are brought by people linked to the Irish Republican movement, not in response to new evidence or information, but because of the retrospective application of human rights laws that were never designed to govern counter-terrorist combat. Often, these claims are deliberately designed to aid the Irish Republican narrative that British security forces behaved unlawfully in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
Under the terms of the Belfast Agreement, IRA terrorists were given immunity from prosecution. Many were released from prison before their sentences had been served, despite carrying out terrorist attacks which killed civilians. For the British Government, and many in Northern Ireland, this was a price worth paying to secure peace. We were willing to accept the necessity of forgiveness.
The same grace has not been extended to those who served in our military, or in the police. Throughout the conflict, they worked to keep the peace, and to neutralise terrorists. They operated according to strict guidelines and rules of engagement; their enemies in the IRA and other paramilitary groups did not. They followed instructions, and conducted operations which were signed off by the most senior political figures in the British Government. In countless fast-moving and dangerous situations, they put their lives at risk, and made split-second decisions to save innocent people.
It is because of their bravery, and their sacrifice, that we have peace in Northern Ireland. Yet many of these veterans have been dragged through the courts for decades, and forced to testify at countless inquests and inquiries.
The previous Government legislated to put a stop to these prosecutions. This Government plans to repeal those protections, and throw open the doors for a whole new wave of lawfare. They are so determined to do this, they have even made it one of only two bills carried over from this Parliamentary session to the next. They insist that this is necessary, because the protections put in place by the last Government are not compliant with the Human Rights Act, or our obligations to the ECHR.
But if protecting our veterans from vexatious prosecution really isn’t compatible with ECHR membership, this only strengthens the case for leaving the ECHR altogether.
The action taken by our security forces in Northern Ireland was necessary, in order to keep us safe. The same is true of the action taken by those who are currently serving across the world. Their ability to take that action relies on the knowledge that, if they have acted according to instructions given to them by the British Government, then the British Government will give them full support in future. It is, in other words, a relationship which relies on trust.
The Government’s plan to repeal the Legacy And Reconciliation Act totally undermines that trust. So it is no surprise that, as a result, many currently-serving SAS soldiers are resigning. Who can blame them? When they can’t even rely on the support of their own Government, and may face decades of legal harassment in future, why would they take the kind of risks that they’re being asked to take?
This is a disgraceful way to treat those who take such enormous risks to keep us safe. Service personnel, both historic and currently serving, put their lives on the line so that we can live ours in freedom and peace. It’s a minor miracle that anybody is willing to do this, and we should be incredibly grateful to those who are. The very least that we can do is allow them to be sure that, when their duty is done, they will not be left hanging out to dry by their own Government.