‘This is vengeance against soldiers who served their country’

Fears Labour will remove veterans' legal protection from prosecution

- By Conor Wilson

A FORMER SAS soldier fears Labour will betray him and his comrades on the eve of a crucial debate in Parliament about allowing Northern Ireland veterans to be prosecuted for historic operations.

A petition calling on the Government not to repeal a piece of legislation that protects them has gathered more than 167,000 signatures.

The Legacy Act was introduced by the Conservatives in 2023 with the aim of drawing a line under the Troubles and protecting veterans from spurious prosecutions.

Labour believes this legislation is unlawful and has vowed to repeal it, a move blasted by a former member of the SAS.

James, not his real name, told the Sunday Express: “This is a betrayal and I think that every serviceman would agree with that.”

James served in the infantry and then the SAS in the late 1980s and will be one of thousands of veterans marching on Westminster tomorrow in protest.

“What we are seeing at the moment is this politically inspired, lawyer-fuelled campaign of vengeance against servicemen who served their country well for decades,” he said.

James was part of a unit tasked with preventing IRA terrorists from waging war on innocent civilians.

“Our objective was always to arrest,” he said when asked about the rules of engagement at the height of the Troubles.

“If it was necessary to use force then we would use force but that force would have to be reasonable and proportionate.”

Operation Banner, from 1969 to 2007, saw 300,000 British soldiers deployed to Northern Ireland. During that time 1,441 died, 722 of them as a result of paramilitary attacks.