We must think again about legacy plan before it is too late

The event, at midday, is titled ‘Paras Fight Back’.

They deserve widespread support. In fact, if they were getting the support they ought to be getting, tens of thousands of people would be travelling to the capital for the event.

Statistics on legacy are complicated, and not easily deciphered and explained, yet there is no shortage of commentators and legacy ‘experts’ who are quick to insist that the process is not imbalanced. One figure that emerged in 2017, and has been cited ever since, is that only 30% of PSNI legacy investigation branch cases relate to killings by state forces.

The figure is used again and again to imply that the current legacy approach is balanced, because it is overwhelmingly (70%) looking at terrorist killings.

But this is shockingly misleading. Some 90% of killings were by terrorists and most of the remaining 10%, by state forces, were legitimate (even though every death is highly regrettable). Yet almost all of those state killings (360 or so) are before the PSNI legacy team. That implies that they were all or mostly illegal or at least contentious.

Republicans of course say that but it is alarming that key unionist figures and the government have failed to challenge such nonsense. In fact, the secretary of state foolishly went too far the other way and seemed to say that none of them were illegal, and was then forced into a humiliating retreat.

It is appalling that such a high proportion of the legacy effort has been focused on state killings. It has been clear for more than a year that the legacy structures agreed at Stormont House in 2014 are deeply flawed. Sinn Fein is so happy with the proposed bodies it is demanding their implementation.

There is still time to get legacy right but we must think again about the implications of the suggested structures which are so unfair not only to veterans, but to retired RUC.