Lord Empey: London’s refusal to get funds for victims of Libya-IRA is shameful

It came the day before a meeting of the NI Affairs Committee at Westminster, at which the Foreign Secretary’s adviser on Libya, Mr Shawcross, was due to appear.

I have been campaigning on this issue since 2002 when I first wrote to the then Foreign Office Minister Mike O’Brien.

It is now over seven years since my first Private Members Bill (Frozen Assets (Compensation) Bill) was presented to Parliament. While it passed the House of Lords twice, it was blocked in the Commons because the government was not prepared to deal with the problem of providing compensation to the victims of the Semtex explosive supplied to the IRA by Libyan Leader Col Gaddafi.

The Parliamentary Support Group for the victims of Libyan supplied Semtex, chaired by Andrew Rosindell MP, has met ministers time and time again, including Boris Johnson MP when he was Foreign Secretary.

The last meeting was in November 2020 with James Cleverly MP, Minister with responsibility for North Africa.

The group had posed two key questions

1) Will the government use the £5 million it receives in tax each year from the frozen Libyan assets in London to help the victims, pending a full deal with Libya,

and 2) will the government use its veto at the UN Security Council to prevent the release of Libyan frozen assets around the world in the absence of a deal with Libya on compensation for UK victims?

Now we have our answer.

The government’s attitude is particularly galling given that the USA, France and Germany have all extracted compensation from Libya for the death and injury of their citizens.

Why is it that the UK — which has more victims of Libyan exported terrorism — neither asked for nor received any funds?

It is simply appalling and shameful the British government should be expecting UK taxpayers to pay compensation to British victims of Libyan supplied terrorist weaponry.

I have always felt that the reason the UK was pulling its punches over Libya was because of a dirty deal done with Gaddafi by former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

There is something rotten about all of this.

• Lord Empey is a former Ulster Unionist Party leader

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