'Our allies think we are mad!'

Labour’s betrayal of Troubles veterans ‘driving soldiers to quit elite units’

- BY DAVID WILLIAMSON

ELITE soldiers are being driven out of the special forces by the government turning its back on Troubles veterans and scrapping conditional immunity, critics claim.

Blasting the new Troubles Bill, which would remove protections for veterans, shadow defence minister Mark Francois condemned a “sordid backstairs deal between our government and the government of the Irish Republic’. He said: “We already have more people leaving the armed forces than joining and if this Bill goes through fewer will join and more will leave”