Editorial: ​A shameful capitulation to Ireland on legacy by a UK government

​The leader of the DUP, Gavin Robinson, has given an excellent appraisal of the utter scandal of legacy.

​The East Belfast MP, as we report on page one and inside the paper, describes as “outrageous” what will happen today on legacy, when Ireland is given joint control of its handling with the UK.

Mr Robinson sets out very well the problems with today’s likely plan, something that this newspaper has been saying for the better part of a decade. It is for example utterly outrageous that the Irish government has not been made to face accountability for its extradition refusals during the Troubles, and the hundreds of Protestants murdered along the border as a result.

It is beyond belief that an Ireland that gave IRA a flagrant but undeclared amnesty after 1994 has not only the sheer nerve to sue the UK for a proposed conditional amnesty but has not faced retaliatory action. And Hilary Benn, whose handling of legacy Mr Robinson rightly attacks, has simply ignored why he stayed in the UK cabinet when Tony Blair proposed a full amnesty in 2005.

Now this Irish action, instead of leading to immediate retaliation by the weak last Tory government, is actually going to be rewarded by this far weaker one.

Mr Robinson’s remarks give hope that all the unionist parties will opposed today’s shameful agreement, even if there are token gestures to victims of the IRA that make it all look balanced (it won’t be balanced). Victims activists such as SEFF have been isolated in their brave opposition to the unending legacy scandals, so they will be appalled at this too.

It is clear that Labour is going to press ahead with its capitulation.

It is now time for the Tories to make clear that they will overturn these arrangements when they come to power, just as Labour overturned their own legacy plans. And Reform UK should vow the same.