UK’s Treatment of Northern Ireland Veterans an International Anomaly, Says Former Minister

Former Veterans’ Minister Johnny Mercer say the UK’s position is a betrayal at odds with the legal protections given to soldiers elsewhere in the world.

Members of the military act as pallbearers at the funeral of former soldier Dennis Hutchings, who died after contracting COVID-19 while on trial over a fatal shooting incident in Northern Ireland in 1974, at St Andrew's Church in Plymouth, England on Nov. 11, 2021. Ben Birchall/PA Wire

Ex-British Army soldier and former Veterans’ Minister Johnny Mercer has told The Epoch Times plans by the UK government to repeal legislation which would have drawn a line under The Troubles in Northern Ireland is a betrayal at odds with the legal protections given to soldiers elsewhere in the world.

The Troubles lasted between 1969 and 1998, and more than 3,600 people were killed as a result of attacks by and conflicts between the UK-designated terrorist group Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA)—which wanted to unite the island of Ireland—pro-British loyalist paramilitaries, or the actions of the security forces.

Although the Good Friday Agreement—which brought peace and political power-sharing in Northern Ireland—created a political settlement, it left open the question of how to deal with the many unsolved murders from The Troubles, and the many controversial killings by the British Army or its elite unit, the Special Air Service (SAS), which were brought in to stop the IRA’s terrorist campaign.

When Labour won the general election in July 2024 it promised to repeal the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act, which had been introduced only a few months earlier.

The legislation brought an end to criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits over incidents stemming from The Troubles, and gave immunity to soldiers, police officers, and paramilitaries, as long as they agreed to tell the truth at hearings to be held by an Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).

The Legacy Act was brought in after Dennis Hutchings, an 80-year-old veteran of the Life Guards Regiment, died of COVID-19 in October 2021, while on trial for attempting to murder 27-year-old John Pat Cunningham in County Tyrone in 1974.

Earlier this month Mr. Justice Humphreys, sitting as a coroner, ruled an SAS unit who killed four IRA men at Clonoe, County Tyrone, in 1992 after the terrorists attacked a police station had not been justified in opening fire, and referred his findings to Northern Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions.

Humphreys ruled the soldiers at Clonoe did not hold, “an honest and genuinely held belief” that the use of force was necessary to defend themselves or others.

Mercer said the IRA gang who were killed at Clonoe had been armed with a Soviet-made Degtyaryov-Shpagin (DShK) heavy machine gun, known as a Dushka.

He questioned the coroner’s assessment, saying, “There’s no physical way of him proving what the belief was of those operators at the time, trying to read their minds.”

He said of the IRA men: “This is four blokes driving around Northern Ireland with a Dushka welded to a truck, firing it. I’ve been in an ambush from a Dushka in Afghanistan. It is a serious matter.”

In December, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn gave a statement in Parliament in which he said, “Addressing the legacy of The Troubles was one of the aims of the Good Friday Agreement, but this task remains incomplete.”

Benn criticized the approach of the previous Conservative government, which enacted the Northern Ireland Troubles Act.

“Aspects of the Legacy Act have now been found by the courts to be incompatible with our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. This must be remedied and the government is committed to repeal and replace the legislation,” he said.

The government proposes amending the legislation with a remedial order, which would remove, “immunity and prohibition of criminal enforcement action.”

‘They Think We’re Insane’

Mercer, who served in the British Army from 2002 to 2014, said he had spoken to politicians and generals in the United States and France about the British attitude toward Northern Ireland veterans.

“They think we’re insane,” Mercer said.

“The French had Algeria and the U.S. as well, and they have limitations and protections for their veterans. What we’re doing now has no international comparison.”

Mercer said British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, a former lawyer, is “on a different side to me in this conflict.”

“I think it’s disgraceful. I think it’s a kind of traitorous betrayal of the sacrifice of young men and women who were young, they did their best, the vast, vast, majority of them held themselves to extraordinary life standards,” he said.

“What do you think Trump thinks of this sort of thing? It’s a fundamentally different attitude.”

Mercer said a so-called truth and reconciliation body like the ICRIR should have been part of the Good Friday agreement, which was agreed between the British government and the various political parties in Northern Ireland, including the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein.

He said he had spoken to some people involved in the Good Friday Agreement.

“I know this is a source of regret for them, the ongoing prosecution of soldiers. It’s a deep source of regret. There’s a lot of the terrorists who are dead, a lot of the disappeared have never been found. A huge missed opportunity.”

Last year he testified to the public inquiry on Afghanistan, which is looking into allegations that British special forces troops executed Afghan men—sometimes unarmed and presenting no threat—between 2010 and 2013.

The Legacy Act would also have blocked compensation for former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and hundreds of others who were interned without trial in the 1970s, after the UK Supreme Court judgment.

On Jan. 15, Starmer said he was looking “at every conceivable way” of preventing Adams and others from gaining compensation.

Starmer has been criticized by the opposition Conservatives for appointing Richard Hermer, a lawyer who once represented Adams, as the attorney general, the government’s top legal adviser.

Lord Hermer, who has been accused of having possible conflicts of interest with his government work, last month confirmed he had recused himself from advising ministers on “certain matters” but said he could not give details as he was bound by convention.

In October 2023, Hermer, representing the Afghan families at the start of the Afghanistan Inquiry, said in his opening statement, “I will seek to highlight evidence capable of suggesting that members of the SAS were applying a practice of unlawfully killing Afghan civilians.”

Former soldier Dennis Hutchings (R) arrives with Johnny Mercer (L) for his trial at Laganside Courts, Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Oct. 4, 2021. Peter Morrison/PA Wire

Mercer said people like Hermer are “from a school of thought that British soldiers are inherently bad.”

“I think that’s a terrible situation for a prime minister to be in.”

But on Feb. 12, Starmer said in the House of Commons that Tory criticism of Hermer questioned the “principle that everybody’s entitled legal representation.”

Brother of IRA Member Speaks Out

Donal Ryan, whose brother Pete was one of three IRA men gunned down by the SAS in Coagh, County Tyrone in June 1991, told The Epoch Times he would like to see the Legacy Act repealed altogether.

“Everybody needs and deserves to hear the truth about their loved ones. We found out at the end of an inquest what happened to our loved ones. That wasn’t pleasant, but we knew everything that we could, although certain evidence was missing,” Ryan said.

A video of the Coagh ambush operation, made by the SAS, had been destroyed and the coroner has since passed the associated files onto the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) to investigate the destruction of the video and the planning of the operation, which was criticized during the inquest.

Ryan said the video would have been key evidence in determining what happened, and whether the operation was lawful.

“I would like to see the likes of those investigations go ahead. If there’s no prosecutions, then so be it, but we need to get that complete closure, because we’re still hanging on. We’re still waiting,” Ryan said.

Ryan noted that it had not just been former soldiers who had been prosecuted for alleged crimes during The Troubles.

In 2011 Gerry McGeough, a former IRA man, was jailed for the attempted murder of an off-duty soldier, Sammy Brush, who later became a councilor for the Democratic Unionist Party.

“I’ve heard Johnny Mercer and I’ve heard what he had to say, but everybody has their own truth and it’s a case of trying to address all of that,” Ryan said.

Solicitor Niall Murphy speaks to the media outside Belfast High Court in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Feb. 20, 2025. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Last month, the ICRIR’s chief executive, Louise Warde Hunter, said: “We are committed to getting the unvarnished truth for victims, survivors and families. That remains our unwavering focus for this year and beyond.”

In its written evidence to Parliament, the ICRIR said 120 individuals had asked for their cases to be examined and 24 were in the information recovery stage, in which “a team of investigators gathers information and evidence and seeks to answer the questions the requesting individual has raised.”

The Northern Ireland Office declined The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

The Epoch Times also contacted the Attorney General’s Office and Sinn Fein, and did not receive a response by publication time.