MPs voted to push the controversial Troubles Bill through Parliament last night in the face of fears for the immunity of Northern Ireland veterans.The Bill will continue to progress in the next parliamentary session, after MPs voted 279 to 176, majority 103, in support of a carry-over motion late on Monday night.Troubles veterans had been handed protections under the previous Tory Government’s Legacy Act.But that was rapidly scrapped by Sir Keir Starmer – with Labour claiming the Act was “incompatible” with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
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On Sunday night, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch confirmed her MPs would be voting against the carry-over motion – and they did, alongside Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats.But 279 Labour, Green and Northern Irish SDLP and Alliance MPs were enough to send it through.Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said it was “essential” the Bill was resumed again in the next Parliament to give protections to veterans.He said veterans would be given “protections” like promises for no repeated investigations, no cold-calling, a requirement to consider the age and welfare of veterans, and that that any veteran can give evidence remotely and anonymously.But his shadow counterpart, Alex Burghart, warned the Bill “will reopen the door to vexatious litigation, it will drag old soldiers through the courts and subject split-second decisions taken under high stress decades ago to the post hoc algorithm of a legal framework that did not exist at the time”He added: “The number of answers that victims will get will be minimal, and all the while veterans will be hauled before the courts, investigated for years, subjected to all the pain and ignominy that will bring. “The process has become the punishment.”Late last year, former SAS commanders accused the Government of “doing the enemy’s work” by exposing Britain’s elite troops to legal action.LABOUR’S TROUBLES BILL – READ MORE:Fears Labour’s SAS ‘witch-hunts’ could leave UK-US ‘special relationship’ in tattersLabour branded ‘spineless’ over ‘witch hunt’ of Troubles veterans‘National disgrace!’ Keir Starmer accused of driving British Army veterans to brink of suicide over Northern Ireland billThey said troops were being used as “scapegoats” – while handing propaganda victories to hostile states.”Britain’s special forces are small, discreet, uniquely lethal… Their humiliation rewards Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing,” the commanders wrote in The Telegraph.And before the vote, DUP leader Gavin Robinson issued a scathing put-down of the Troubles Bill in its entirety.Mr Robinson said the Government had lost the confidence of both Troubles victims as well as veterans.”This Government has had two years to honour their commitment to repeal and replace the Legacy Act, and they have summarily failed,” he told reporters during a press conference at Parliament Buildings in Belfast on Monday morning,” he said.”They have failed victims, they have failed veterans and all they’re offering now is to pick up their broken Bill in a number of months’ time so that Parliament can consider shedloads of Government amendments to their own Bill.”The truth is they have lost the confidence of victims in Northern Ireland through this process, they have lost the confidence of veterans throughout the United Kingdom during this process.”The right thing for the Labour Government to have done would have been to withdraw this bill, to consider not only their own amendments but those tabled by myself, our party and colleagues from Northern Ireland who are represented in the House of Commons, consider those amendments, and bring forward a Troubles Bill that could command the confidence of not only Westminster, but communities most deeply impacted here in Northern Ireland.”
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