Thirty old soldiers, many in berets, packed the public seats in Westminster Hall, the Commons off-shoot used for petition debates.
MPs were discussing the prosecution – persecution – of Northern Ireland veterans.
That can of maggots has been reopened by the Labour Government, thanks not least to Attorney General Lord Hermer KC, who once represented Gerry Adams. His lordship did not attend this debate.
I have not seen Westminster Hall so full or funereal. Facing the Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn was a phalanx of black suits and grim expressions.
Westminster debates are seldom like this, even when they deal in matters of life and death. There again, it is not often that a government proposes to make life a legal agony for soldiers who risked everything for the late Queen.
‘The punishment,’ as New Forest East’s Julian Lewis (Con) put it, ‘is the process.’
Some legalistic types argued that hardly anyone was at risk of actually being found guilty. MPs sympathetic to the veterans struggled not to shout their anger.
When you are a 70-year-old retired serviceman there is torment merely in the thought of some vexatious lawyer sauntering up your garden path with a letter of filthy proceedings.
A ‘sordid, backstairs deal’ between the Starmer government and Dublin was to blame, thought Mark Francois, shadow minister. And yet IRA killers had been handed ‘On The Run letters’ by Tony Blair. ‘Throwing veterans to the wolves while doing Gerry Adams a favour,’ said an incredulous Mr Francois.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Con, Chingford) spoke of his late friend Robert Nairac, an army hero who was tortured and murdered by the IRA. ‘Talk about injustice, that’s injustice!’ roared Sir Iain. Sir David Davis (Con, Goole & Pocklington) argued that soldiers did more for human rights than any damn KC. Jesse Norman (Con, Hereford) simmered at a ‘fundamentally dishonest’ process that would chase ex-soldiers while leaving IRA killers undisturbed.
Louise Jones (Lab, NE Derbys) felt there was ‘scaremongering by people who don’t understand’ the new law. Stuart Anderson (Con, S Shropshire), in a Herefordshire burr, asked if she was implying the SAS and others were ‘naive’. It certainly sounded so. Ms Jones twisted her fingers.
Paul Foster (Lab, S Ribble), who had earlier been rolling his eyes while Sir David was describing IRA atrocities, alleged ‘politicisation’ of the issue by Conservative MPs. Mr Foster, in brown shoes, would not take interventions. That is never a good sign. You should have the courage to defend your argument. Douglas McAllister (Lab, W Dunbartonshire) also appeared to find some speeches amusing. A Whips’ nark, possibly. He sloped off after a while.
Once or twice, from the public seats, spade-like hands sent up a machine-gun clatter of applause. The veterans also snorted with derision at super-ambitious Ms Jones.
Mr Benn, in his reply, cut a lean, silvery-topped figure, pinching the tips of his fingers and thumbs as he made clever points. He played niceties with the subtle difference between ‘illegal’ and ‘unlawful’. He bounced on his toes as he spoke of the need for diligent worship of ‘the rule of law’.
Again came the line that the number of veterans prosecuted in the past was ‘very small’. It was a sort of ‘we don’t really mean it, honest’ argument you will sometimes hear in school playgrounds. I am afraid it lacked the heft, the moral and emotional gravity that this matter needed.
Of the absent Lord Hermer it can no doubt be said, easily, that he is not a man with whom to enter the jungle, or more specifically the back streets of Newry.
But what about thoughtful, moderate Hilary? Surely he’s OK, isn’t he?
Alas, Mr Benn showed himself to be an attorney’s lackey, twisting on Lord Hermer’s rope, a senior minister more awed by our jot-and-tittle Attorney General than he is by mightier questions of political truth and our loyalty to fighting men who know this whole thing stinketh.
