John Cooper

John Cooper

Conservative — Dumfries and Galloway

Speaking in the House of Commons on 11 February 2025

Debate

Clonoe Inquest

Contribution

It is a great pity that no one from the Defence Front-Bench team is here with us because I am sure that if they were, they could confirm that the DShK machine gun that these men had is a weapon of incredible power. If we were to look around the average city block, there would be nothing that a DShK could not hit and put a bullet right through. We now sit here warm and safe and consider the actions of, as we have heard, brave men who had to take an instantaneous decision to stand up and face that weapon and the people who had already demonstrated that they were prepared to use it. It sticks in the craw that we hear the IRA described here as a “unit”—as though they were some sort of army. They style themselves as an army, but they are not an army—they are a murder gang, simple as that. Is it not the case that the ECHR now skews the balance in their favour, and that we are hide-bound by the idea that there is an equivalence between the IRA and the brave soldiers of the SAS who stood up and did what they had to do to protect innocent lives?

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