Unionists should make clear that they have a distinct stance on the legacy of terrorism

The government’s bill on legacy yesterday was met with an outpouring of criticism.

The uproar related to a potential amnesty for all Troubles crimes.

The secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, defended the controversial proposal.

As happens each time there is a major development on legacy, much of the media seized on the fact that ‘all the main political parties and victims groups’ oppose the plan. But this is misleading because it depicts UK governments as the villains on legacy.

Unionists have played a role in this distortion.

Whenever ministers try to advance legacy in way that republicans don’t like, there is a clamour from terrorists, their helpers, their supporters, from Dublin, from Irish America, and from activists who get agitated about the human rights of murderers.

Much of this reaction is deplorable, but some of it is almost comic. Sinn Fein leaders such as Michelle O’Neill talk of a British cover-up when they are part of a republican movement which has been so evasive about the past.

However, many unionist politicians are failing to make crystal clear their contempt for the republican opposition to London’s plans.

Rather than letting any implication emerge that all the parties in NI are agreed on legacy, unionists should always be explaining that they oppose the plans, but for the opposite reason to Sinn Fein: that it is all too soft on terrorists, who killed by far the most people.

Mr Lewis is partly right when he says that the prospect of successful historic prosecutions are vanishingly small. They are indeed that for terrorist murders. IRA leaders in particular somehow have never seemed to face justice. But the chance of a successful prosecution of security forces is high.

Thus there are two options.

Either London acts unilaterally on legacy, to end the imbalance in favour of terrorists, using every method at its disposal including inquiries into IRA terror.

Or it winds the whole thing up.

But it needs to be much more explicit on that the imbalance is a scandal, and will end.

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