The UK seems to have prioritised both trade with Libya and appeasement of IRA over its duty to victims

That the UK is not going to use frozen Libyan assets to compensate victims of Libyan supplied IRA terrorism is not in the least surprising.

It has been clear that Britain is not prepared to move on this for many years. The issue has been delayed and parried and shrouded in fog.

But regardless of its predictability, it is an act of deep moral cowardice.

Lord Empey, who has pushed for compensation for two decades, writes opposite about his belief that this dates back to the 2005 meeting between Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi.

The former Ulster Unionist leader might well be right about that — perhaps it was rooted in a desire to develop trading relations with Tripoli. But as Baroness Hoey says, also on the opposite page, this is about appeasing the IRA too.

The former Labour prime minister was always determined to keep Irish republicans happy, and even launched a secret scheme to reassure their fugitives. Compensating Libya-IRA victims, as France and America compensated their own Libya victims, would be a reminder of IRA bloodshed.

This would not do. The UK, both via the then Labour government and the Tory one after it, has been determined not to upset republicans on legacy by dwelling on their decades of terrorism (even while the security force Troubles record is carefully picked apart, at vast expense to taxpayers).

Just as it was shocking to see the PSNI chief constable meet with one of the brutal IRA corporal killers near to the anniversary of that 1988 atrocity without meeting the victims’ group SEFF, it emerged yesterday that William Shawcross, who was assessing Libya compensation, had met Sinn Fein representatives but not victim representatives such as SEFF.

SF told him that ‘all victims’ deserve compensation. But that is a bogus point: this is not about general assistance, like the victim pension. It is about specific compensation taken out of assets frozen from a rogue regime that helped mass murderers, and giving it to those whose lives they ruined.

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