Editorial: The legacy scandal is so obvious now that the SAS has taken the remarkable step of writing to Hilary Benn

​This week the Labour government gave a statement to Nigel Farage’s show on GB News about the legacy scandal in Northern Ireland.

​In that statement, a spokesperson emphasised that Keir Starmer’s administration had made clear that it would not accept needless and repeated investigations of veterans of the Troubles, the overwhelming bulk of whom served their country with distinction. There was nothing unusual about the statement, but perhaps something unusual about the tone. It was almost desperate. And so it should be.

This is a government that is in the extraordinary situation of being both utterly secure and on the brink. It is secure in that it has a massive majority in the House of Commons, it is fragile in that it is torn between leftists and moderates. It also has a raft of MPs in areas where Labour has rarely been represented at Westminster. Some such constituencies have many retired service men and women.

You could hardly think of an issue more likely to send veteran voters to parties other than Labour, such as Mr Farage’s Reform UK, than the hounding of ex security forces in order to placate nationalist Ireland. And nationalist Ireland is an apt term – if there is distinction between the SDLP, which once opposed the IRA bitterly, and Sinn Fein on how to pursue legacy, then it is now hard to discern. Both parties are in lockstep with the main Dublin political leaders on legacy.

This newspaper has been reporting on the legacy scandal for a decade. We have tried to expose the demonisation of UK state forces, amid effective amnesty for the IRA. More and more influential people and groups now see this.

A letter has been sent from the SAS Regimental Association to Hilary Benn at the Northern Ireland Office, saying that if Labour’s legacy “bill is enacted in anything like its current state, it will be subject to challenge”. What an astonishing development.