Editorial: The latest scandal facing SAS soldiers who stopped IRA terrorists at Clonoe

It is utterly scandalous that prosecutors are being asked to look at the important and even heroic SAS killings of the Clonoe murder gang.

In a widely criticised inquest finding, Mr Justice Humphreys found that the special forces unit was unjustified in using lethal force to stop the terrorists in 1992.

It might be that forwarding a file to prosecutors is a formality. But that is not the point. This disgraceful case has become a belated lightning rod for feeling as to what is happening on legacy to turn the tables on the security forces.

The key thing is that the anger is sustained after the abject failures of some unionist politicians and successive London governments to confront this turn.

Why have there been no prosecutions of IRA leaders for orchestrating three decades of murder and mayhem? Why do we accept lowly soldiers advancing to trial, as is happening in other cases even if it does not in fact happen in the entirely justified killings at Clonoe, when so few IRA do? And do those who point to the odd case of a retrospective prosecution of an IRA murderer think that it even begins to balance this scandal?

There is no parallel between soldiers and RUC who bravely were present when the East Tyrone IRA embarked on yet another heavily-armed murder mission and pre-meditated terrorists.

Meanwhile, retired generals and admirals are complaining about what is going on in Northern Ireland. Good. But this sort of reaction has been seen before and ultimately seems to change little.

It is important that Reform UK make this an electoral campaigning issue. There are still enough people in Britain who know what an outrage it is. And who could be brought to see how this weak, weak, weak Labour government is offering concessions to an Irish government that has given the IRA an amnesty, and then is suing the UK over its own (shelved) amnesty.