Veterans protest against possible repeal of Legacy Act
They marched to Parliament Square in Westminster, brandishing regiment flags and Union flags, and were flanked by a motorbike procession.
The debate comes after more than 165,000 people signed a petition calling for the Government to keep the Legacy Act, which was put in place in 2023 by the former Conservative government to halt all but the most serious allegations involving Troubles-related cases from being investigated any further.
The Labour Government announced it would repeal and replace the Northern Ireland (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 following criticism over immunity for soldiers by human rights groups.
Veterans and MPs alike said they feared this would open up soldiers to being prosecuted for acts and create a 'two-tier' justice system, in which IRA soldiers are given immunity but British troops are open to prosecution.
James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, said he feared it would dissuade people from joining the Armed Forces because they could be 'persecuted' further down the line.
He said: 'We all know we need more people in our Army, our Navy, our Air Force.
'Fundamentally, this is about us as a country, recognising that we live in a time of heightened threat…When that is happening, we will be strengthening our Armed Forces. The last thing we want to do is be going after them again for what they did decades ago. What message is that going to send to all the young people whom we want to join the Army in future?'
Sir Iain, the former leader of the Conservative Party who served in Northern Ireland, told the PA news agency that veterans were angry about the potential changes to the legislation.
He said: 'They feel they served their country. They did what they could do. They did their best. It was difficult, I can promise you now, I patrolled the streets.
'We see the pursuit of Northern Ireland veterans whose cases were heard previously and settled.
'They are the ones being pursued yet again in the courts under the arrangements and this is wrong.
'You don't see any of the IRA being pursued.
'Right now this is a very one-sided arrangement with the British soldiers who didn't ask to go there.'
Mr Francois, a shadow junior defence minister who backed the petition, added: 'What the Government is doing is wrong.
'They're not treating veterans who were there to uphold the law in Northern Ireland the same as they are treating alleged terrorists.
'There should be no moral equivalence between the veterans and the terrorists.'
Aldwin Wight, 72, a former special forces commanding officer who lives in Cornwall, said: 'These are people we've served with.
'They're very close to us, and seeing them caught up in this sort of endless doom loop of legislation is not good.
'We're in a fairly dark situation at the moment in security terms and therefore there are going to be incidents and you've got to have people who are willing to step forward and take on the hard tasks.
'And you don't want to do that as it were, with your solicitor in your pocket.
'You want to do it with a clear operational view of what you're doing.'
Denise Walker, 58, a veteran in the catering corps, came down from Glasgow to protest.
She said: 'This has led to our servicemen fearing that we're going to be up for prosecution again.
'At the end of the day, this Government sent us over there to do a job on their behalf.
'We followed their orders to the letter.'
David Holmes, a 64-year old veteran who runs the Rolling Thunder veteran motorbike group which protested, said: 'I spent years campaigning with this.
'We worked with the previous government. We found a good solution.
'People want closure, but actually to put 70 and 80-year-old soldiers in the dock for doing their job they were asked to do by the government on what is basically trumped up charges (is wrong).
'The only evidence is they were there at the time.'
Northern Ireland Secretary, Hilary Benn, said: 'The Legacy Act has been rejected in Northern Ireland and found by our domestic courts to be unlawful, not least because it would have offered immunity to terrorists. Any incoming government would have had to repeal unlawful legislation and it is simply wrong for anyone to suggest otherwise.
'This Government's commitment to our Operation Banner veterans is unshakeable. Their professionalism and sacrifice saved countless lives in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom, and ultimately helped bring about peace. The Legacy Act did nothing to help our veterans – it offered only false and undeliverable promises.
'I and the Defence Secretary are engaging with our veterans community and with all interested parties over future legislation, and we will ensure that there are far better protections in place.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
42 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Thousands relocated to UK after data leak on Afghans who helped British forces
Thousands of people are being relocated to the UK as part of a secret £850m scheme set up after a personal data leak of Afghans who supported British forces, it can now be reported. A dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) was released 'in error' by a defence official in February 2022. The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route – in April 2024. The scheme is understood to have cost about £400m so far, with a projected cost once completed of about £850m. Millions more is expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) only became aware of the breach more than a year after the release when excerpts of the dataset were anonymously posted on to a Facebook group in August 2023. More details soon …
Rhyl Journal
43 minutes ago
- Rhyl Journal
Thousands being relocated to UK after personal data leak of Afghans
A dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was released 'in error' in February 2022 by a defence official. The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route – in April 2024. The scheme is understood to have cost around £400 million so far, with a projected cost once completed of around £850 million. Millions more is expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) only became aware of the breach over a year after the release, when excerpts of the dataset were anonymously posted onto a Facebook group in August 2023. Details on the dataset include the the names and contact details of the Arap applicants and names of their family members. Arap was responsible for relocating Afghan nationals who had worked for or with the UK Government and were therefore at risk of reprisals once the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people, including the estimated number of family members of the Arap applicants, were affected by the breach and could be at risk of harassment, torture or death if the Taliban obtained their data, judges said in June 2024. However an independent review, commissioned by the Government in January 2025, concluded last month that the dataset is 'unlikely to significantly shift Taliban understanding of individuals who may be of interest to them'. Around 4,500 people – made up of 900 Arap applicants and approximately 3,600 family members have been brought to the UK or are in transit so far through the Afghanistan Response Route. A further estimated 600 people and their relatives are expected to be relocated before the scheme closes, with a total of around 6,900 people expected to be relocated by the end of the scheme. Projected costs of the scheme may include relocation costs, transitional accommodation, legal costs and local authority tariffs. It is understood that the unnamed official had emailed the dataset outside of a secure government system while attempting to verify information, believing the dataset to only have around 150 rows. However, there were more than 33,000 rows of information which were inadvertently sent. An unprecedented superinjunction was made at the High Court in September 2023 to reduce the risk of alerting the Taliban to the existence of the data, with the decision to apply for an order made by then-defence secretary Ben Wallace. The Information Commissioner's Office and Metropolitan Police were also informed. The superinjunction, lifted on Tuesday, is thought to be the longest lasting order of its kind and the first time the Government has sought such a restrictive measure against the media. At multiple hearings, lawyers for the MoD said in written submissions that there was a 'very real risk that people who would otherwise live will die' if the Taliban gained access to the data. However, a recent report by retired civil servant Paul Rimmer said: 'Given the data they already have access to as the de facto government, we believe it is unlikely the dataset would be the single, or definitive, piece of information enabling or prompting the Taliban to act.' Mr Rimmer further found that the Government possibly 'inadvertently added more value to the dataset' by seeking the unprecedented superinjunction and creating a bespoke resettlement scheme. Under plans set out last October, the Afghanistan Response Route was expected to allow up to 25,000 people – most of whom were ineligible for Arap but deemed to be at the highest risk from Taliban reprisals – to be relocated. One internal Government document from February this year said: 'This will mean relocating more Afghans to the UK than have been relocated under the Arap scheme, at a time when the UK's immigration and asylum system is under significant strain. This will extend the scheme for another five years at a cost of c. £7 billion.' However, the resettlement schemes are closing, with the review suggesting that the Afghanistan Response Route may be 'disproportionate' to the impact of the Taliban obtaining the information. As of March 2025, around 36,000 people had been relocated to the UK under Arap and other resettlement schemes. Arap, which was launched in April 2021, is now closed to new applicants after immigration rule changes were laid in Parliament earlier this month. The Government had originally outlined plans to launch a compensation scheme for those affected by the breach, with an estimated cost of between £120 and £350 million, not including administration expenses. Hundreds of data protection legal challenges are also expected, with the court previously told that a Manchester-based law firm already had several hundred prospective clients. The breach can now be reported after a High Court judge lifted the superinjunction – which prohibited making any reference to the existence of the court proceedings and is thought to have been the longest and widest ranging of its kind – on Tuesday. In one of several rulings, judge Mr Justice Chamberlain noted the superinjunction 'imposed very wide-ranging restrictions', with information about the breach limited to selected officials. In a decision in November 2023, Mr Justice Chamberlain said while the superinjunction did not constrain what could be said in Parliament, 'MPs and peers cannot ask questions about something they do not know about'. The judge ruled in May 2024 that the order should be lifted, stating there was a 'significant possibility' the Taliban knew about the dataset, adding it was 'fundamentally objectionable' that decisions about thousands of people's lives and 'enormous sums of public money now being committed' were being taken in secret. However, judges at the Court of Appeal overturned this ruling the following month, finding that he had not properly considered the consequences of lifting the order and that the superinjunction should stay in place. Following the retired civil servant's review, the MoD agreed on July 4 that the order could be lifted. It is expected that the cost of seeking and maintaining the superinjunction will be several million pounds.
North Wales Chronicle
43 minutes ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Thousands being relocated to UK after personal data leak of Afghans
A dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was released 'in error' in February 2022 by a defence official. The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route – in April 2024. The scheme is understood to have cost around £400 million so far, with a projected cost once completed of around £850 million. Millions more is expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) only became aware of the breach over a year after the release, when excerpts of the dataset were anonymously posted onto a Facebook group in August 2023. Details on the dataset include the the names and contact details of the Arap applicants and names of their family members. Arap was responsible for relocating Afghan nationals who had worked for or with the UK Government and were therefore at risk of reprisals once the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people, including the estimated number of family members of the Arap applicants, were affected by the breach and could be at risk of harassment, torture or death if the Taliban obtained their data, judges said in June 2024. However an independent review, commissioned by the Government in January 2025, concluded last month that the dataset is 'unlikely to significantly shift Taliban understanding of individuals who may be of interest to them'. Around 4,500 people – made up of 900 Arap applicants and approximately 3,600 family members have been brought to the UK or are in transit so far through the Afghanistan Response Route. A further estimated 600 people and their relatives are expected to be relocated before the scheme closes, with a total of around 6,900 people expected to be relocated by the end of the scheme. Projected costs of the scheme may include relocation costs, transitional accommodation, legal costs and local authority tariffs. It is understood that the unnamed official had emailed the dataset outside of a secure government system while attempting to verify information, believing the dataset to only have around 150 rows. However, there were more than 33,000 rows of information which were inadvertently sent. An unprecedented superinjunction was made at the High Court in September 2023 to reduce the risk of alerting the Taliban to the existence of the data, with the decision to apply for an order made by then-defence secretary Ben Wallace. The Information Commissioner's Office and Metropolitan Police were also informed. The superinjunction, lifted on Tuesday, is thought to be the longest lasting order of its kind and the first time the Government has sought such a restrictive measure against the media. At multiple hearings, lawyers for the MoD said in written submissions that there was a 'very real risk that people who would otherwise live will die' if the Taliban gained access to the data. However, a recent report by retired civil servant Paul Rimmer said: 'Given the data they already have access to as the de facto government, we believe it is unlikely the dataset would be the single, or definitive, piece of information enabling or prompting the Taliban to act.' Mr Rimmer further found that the Government possibly 'inadvertently added more value to the dataset' by seeking the unprecedented superinjunction and creating a bespoke resettlement scheme. Under plans set out last October, the Afghanistan Response Route was expected to allow up to 25,000 people – most of whom were ineligible for Arap but deemed to be at the highest risk from Taliban reprisals – to be relocated. One internal Government document from February this year said: 'This will mean relocating more Afghans to the UK than have been relocated under the Arap scheme, at a time when the UK's immigration and asylum system is under significant strain. This will extend the scheme for another five years at a cost of c. £7 billion.' However, the resettlement schemes are closing, with the review suggesting that the Afghanistan Response Route may be 'disproportionate' to the impact of the Taliban obtaining the information. As of March 2025, around 36,000 people had been relocated to the UK under Arap and other resettlement schemes. Arap, which was launched in April 2021, is now closed to new applicants after immigration rule changes were laid in Parliament earlier this month. The Government had originally outlined plans to launch a compensation scheme for those affected by the breach, with an estimated cost of between £120 and £350 million, not including administration expenses. Hundreds of data protection legal challenges are also expected, with the court previously told that a Manchester-based law firm already had several hundred prospective clients. The breach can now be reported after a High Court judge lifted the superinjunction – which prohibited making any reference to the existence of the court proceedings and is thought to have been the longest and widest ranging of its kind – on Tuesday. In one of several rulings, judge Mr Justice Chamberlain noted the superinjunction 'imposed very wide-ranging restrictions', with information about the breach limited to selected officials. In a decision in November 2023, Mr Justice Chamberlain said while the superinjunction did not constrain what could be said in Parliament, 'MPs and peers cannot ask questions about something they do not know about'. The judge ruled in May 2024 that the order should be lifted, stating there was a 'significant possibility' the Taliban knew about the dataset, adding it was 'fundamentally objectionable' that decisions about thousands of people's lives and 'enormous sums of public money now being committed' were being taken in secret. However, judges at the Court of Appeal overturned this ruling the following month, finding that he had not properly considered the consequences of lifting the order and that the superinjunction should stay in place. Following the retired civil servant's review, the MoD agreed on July 4 that the order could be lifted. It is expected that the cost of seeking and maintaining the superinjunction will be several million pounds.
