Editorial: A weak prime minister might rush through his Northern Ireland Troubles bill now that Al Carns is gone from defence

​The resignation of Al Carns as armed forces minister over Hilary Benn’s legacy legislation for Northern Ireland is a huge breakthrough in the fight against this capitulation to terrorists.

​It is also a time of great peril, in which the Northern Ireland Office - which is always keen to placate the Republic of Ireland - will try to rush through the bill.

Mr Carns said there is “a hierarchy of truth in Northern Ireland … around legacy inquests and inquiries”.

There certainly is such a hierarchy, in which IRA leaders enjoy de facto amnesty on both sides of the border, while republicans hound the security forces, helped by ideological academics and lawyers. It is hardly worth recapping on this because we have been chronicling it on these pages for a decade.

A relatively new element is the appeasement of Dublin’s legal case against London in Strasbourg, because the former Conservative government tried to introduce a conditional amnesty. This was and is a breathtakingly hypocritical action because Ireland, as one of its former justice ministers admitted and as is obvious, has given the IRA an effective amnesty since the ceasefires in the 1990s. The former Tory administration failed to hit back with retaliatory action, such as probes into Ireland’s legacy failures in stopping the IRA. But at least Rishi Sunak criticised the Irish case – Keir Starmer won’t do that.

The Irish government, unable to believe its luck at getting its legacy demands (ie hounding UK forces, although it never admits that aim) in return for feeble commitments in return, is demanding this bill is enacted. Meanwhile, the famously weak Sir Keir signed a defence agreement with free-loading Ireland without even asking for money.

You would hope that the Carns resignation causes Labour to pause. Just as likely as that it tries to rush through this terrible bill, now he is gone as an internal brake.