Editorial: Legacy amendments could again put focus on the state

It is incredible that the government is saying that its controversial legacy legislation will be made more robustly compliant with international law.

It is incredible that unionist politicians, who have been making common cause with the ex police ombudsman Baroness O'Loan on legacy (are they aware of her view that the RUC, far from helping prevent civil war by patiently neutering terrorists via informers, in fact failed to prevent hundreds of deaths?), seem not to know what these amendments will mean.

And it is incredible that, amid multiple well funded groups that focus on historic allegations against the state, opposition to this madness is again falling to three retired men (notably Jeff Dudgeon, Neil Faris and Austen Morgan in their Malone House Group).

Is the government saying it was so foolish that it pressed ahead with legacy plans it thought improper? In fact the plan, while imperfect, was not improper.

For all those supporters of the security forces, and their heroic overall work to minimise sectarian mass murder, who still seem not to realise how international law has been cited in legacy, it means things like a focus on Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to justify a grossly imbalanced focus on UK state forces.

There are four main options on legacy. The status quo which is shamefully lopsided. The Stormont House 2014 deal, which would be imbalanced on a larger scale. The government plan to wind down legacy, which while imperfect is better than the former two. Or London starts giving the IRA, and its witch hunt against police and army, and London's perpetual critic, Ireland, a dose of their own medicine via probes into the biggest killers, republicans.

Instead they edge back towards an anti state process.