Mr Paul Kohler

As has been said many times before, and ignored just as often by Conservative Members, the Tories’ legacy Act utterly failed our veterans, drawing an unacceptable equivalence between the actions of those seeking to defend peace and uphold the rule of law, and the terrorists who sought to undermine it by maiming, murdering and doing all they could to encourage sectarian division and hatred. Of course, the Conservatives are trying to argue that they are defending the interests of our brave veterans, when in reality they are cynically using them to score political points. That is why so many veterans organisations will have nothing to do with their grandstanding. The legacy Act failed to uphold our obligations under the European convention on human rights. At the time, that was just collateral damage, but now it has become central to the Conservatives’ ill-conceived plan to leave the ECHR, and thereby fatally undermine the Good Friday agreement and the Brexit deal of which they are so unjustly proud. The legacy Act failed the communities of Northern Ireland. No political party, be it from the Unionist, nationalist or non-aligned tradition, supports the Conservatives’ flawed legislation, which fundamentally failed to gain the support of those it was supposed to protect. Most devastatingly, it failed innocent victims and their families by barring the pathway to justice, truth and reconciliation. As we have seen throughout these debates, the Tories are still in denial about the legacy Act’s failings, just as they are in denial about their many other failings in government—from Brexit to their financial mismanagement. I am sorry to say that it is what we have come to expect from a once-great party. It is shameless, and they should be shame-faced.