Austen Morgan: Why does Labour target our veterans?

Dr Austen Morgan is a barrister at 33 Bedford Row Chambers. He is the author of: Pretence: why the United Kingdom needs a written constitution.

Military (mainly army) veterans are – I assert – an important social movement of the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, they find themselves threatened by a Labour government dominated by radical international lawyers.

A measure of the movement’s power was its ability to persuade a reluctant Johnson government to legislate twice against vexatious litigation: the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021; and the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.

Significantly, the Starmer government has not sought to amend the 2021 act, which covers most historic military engagements, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

However, when it comes to Northern Ireland (with operation banner between 1969 and 2007), and some 300,000 UK and commonwealth veterans, it promised repeal and replace in its 2024 manifesto.

The reason for this distinguishing by Sir Keir Starmer had little to do with the legacy of the troubles: it was to bring the Irish government – currently suing the UK at Strasbourg – back into jointly managing Northern Ireland; in a context of re-opening relations with the EU after Brexit.

The idea of an amnesty – which is the relevant legal concept – comes from customary international law.  Additionally, the 1949 Geneva conventions on the laws of war were updated in 1977 to include: ‘At the end of hostilities, the authorities in power shall endeavour to grant the broadest possible amnesty to persons who have participated in the armed conflict…’.

Under our common law, where everyone is treated the same regarding criminal liability, this applies to state forces as well as anti-state actors.  The brass hats’ prissy principle of ‘no equivalence’ between us (the veterans) and then (the terrorists) is indulgent legal ignorance.

Associated with the 1998 Belfast agreement, London and Dublin worked their way towards amnesty in Northern Ireland (only occasionally using the term): decommissioning in 1997 and subsequently; the release of prisoners after two years in 1998; immunities regarding the Bloody Sunday inquiry, and four lesser later inquiries; the location of victims’ remains in 1999; and – especially – Tony Blair’s ‘on the runs’ administration scheme, negotiated secretly with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, whereby comfort letters were issued to IRA members as police removed each as suspects from investigation.

229 republican prisoners (alongside loyalists) had been released after 1998.  Over 187 of a further 228 IRA members (not including dissidents) joined their comrades, between 2000 and 2014 (when the John Downey trial in London inadvertently exposed the number 10 conspiracy).

This is to reckon so far without the European convention on human rights (effective in UK law from 2 October 2000), and article 2, which reads: ‘(1) Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law.  (2) Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this Article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary…’.

In May 2001, the Strasbourg court – deciding the McKerr group of four cases – created a new procedural right under article 2; arguably, this was a matter for the states parties, not the judges. Seemingly, all Northern Ireland deaths had to be reopened because of the new standard of an effective investigation under article 2.

UK judges in the house of lords and supreme court were having none of this European retrospectivity, though they took their time with the following cases: McKerr (2004); McCaughey (2011); Keyu (2015); Finucane (2019); McQuillan (2021); Maguire (2023); and Dalton (2023).

Currently, there is no article 2 obligation – though many say otherwise – regarding deaths between 1968 and 1988 (when most were killed), while the remaining period of 1988-98 is at risk – for legacy practitioners engaging in lawfare – to the argument that a Strasbourg ten-year pushback from 2000 is unlawful under the law of treaties.

Labour introduced its Northern Ireland Troubles bill in October 2025.  It, and a related so-called remedial order, are currently stuck in parliament.  Much of the reason turns on the challenges of veterans.

Earlier this year, it became clear that Sir Keir Starmer KC – along with Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers – had contributed to the Human Rights Act 1998 being imposed on soldiers overseas by Strasbourg in 2011: that court could not hold that the 2003 Iraq war was illegal in international law, but these lawyers managed to export human rights to our boys in that campaign to create some domestic illegality.

In July 2024, Lord Hermer KC – the prime minister’s former junior – would have advised as the new attorney general  in a Northern Ireland case called Dillon (currently before the supreme court).  The government rashly abandoned a human rights appeal (this triggering the remedial order before parliament).

The learned attorney had acted earlier for Gerry Adams in a London civil case – Clark and others – which came to an end recently.  But the tories’ legacy act 2023, in sections 46 to 47, had sought to prevent the republican leader from benefiting financially from his internment in the 1970s.

Lord Hermer is resisting this alleged conflict of interest (which would require him to resign if evidenced) by relying upon the law officers’ convention that they do not normally reveal their legal advice.

In this maelstrom of radical lawyering at the top of government, the veterans – with chain of command support – are resisting the government’s legal repealing and replacing. The show trials in Belfast – Dennis Hutchings, Jonathan Holden, soldier F from Bloody Sunday – are disturbing as justice. That is why the generals are now saying they want the government to effectively draw a line under the past for terrorists and veterans alike.

That, in the absence of prosecutions all round, is the only way to legal equality.