Editorial: Welcome protest in London against legacy scandal
The secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Benn, once again was able to cite unionists in relation to the government’s appalling capitulation to Ireland on legacy.
He said, in response to a protest yesterday in Westminster by heroic veterans who prevented civil war: “The Legacy Act has been rejected in Northern Ireland and found by our domestic courts to be unlawful, not least because it would have offered immunity to terrorists."
Note that Mr Benn did not specify that all the Stormont parties supported repeal of the legacy legislation, which is progress. But he implied that, saying it has been rejected “in Northern Ireland”.
He then said that it had been rejected by the courts here “not least because it would have offered immunity to terrorists”.
This latter point is nonsense, as if the activist Belfast courts are trying to ensure that terrorists face justice, when in fact judges have been at the heart of citing the European Convention of Human Rights to justify a lop-sided process against the UK.
There is not enough room in this editorial to point out why this is nonsense: suffice to say the News Letter, pretty much alone in the media, for the better part of a decade has set out what is happening on legacy.
While the Ulster Unionist Party was right to oppose the Stormont House Agreement, the spirit of which ushered in this worst phase of legacy even though it was never implemented, unionists in recent years facilitated this line of all parties opposing the legacy act, as if unionists have a shared position with Sinn Fein.
The Irish government, whom Keir Starmer is trying to appease on legacy, has cited unionist opposition to justify suing London on legacy.
Whatever ultimately replaces the act, unionists must be clear that an anti state process will have no support whatsoever in one community, and claims that a replacement has wide support will be wrong.