𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Nigel Farage has pledged to defend Britain’s military veterans against vexatious prosecutions brought by human rights lawyers and those who undermine our armed forces. At a rally on Monday, Farage and new Reform recruit Suella Braverman vowed to protect our elite forces – including the SAS – from being hounded through courts with spurious accusations under the aegis of an ECHR that cares more for terrorists than our soldiers.

It is a disgrace that soldiers who fought on the front line against IRA terrorists 50 years ago in Northern Ireland should now face prosecution and possible jail, whereas those same terrorists have been absolved from any punishment by the Good Friday Agreement. The 2023 Legacy Act was intended to protect ex-servicemen from prosecution – but the Labour government in 2024 failed to enact it.

Around 600 civil cases are currently hanging over former soldiers who were lawfully deployed in Northern Ireland. It is a betrayal of their military service that says it all about the left-wing prejudices of our legal system and the lawyer-politicians in charge.

Army veteran Dennis Hutchings was 80 and suffering terminal kidney failure and heart disease when he was flown to Belfast to face trial over a 64-year old minor conviction. He wanted to clear his name but the stress hastened his death from Covid during the trial.

“Dennis was an extremely brave man,” said his lawyer. “He could have stopped the process for him at any time, but he thought it was important no one again should have to go through what he went through.”

To resounding applause at the Veterans for Reform event this week, Farage promised to end all current prosecutions of British veterans and to stop future legal action. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman added her own personal account of frustration with the skewed legal system.

Seeking to pull out from the ECHR straitjacket, she found many Tories were willing to support her in private but when it came to putting their heads above the parapet, they chickened out. “No backbone, no resolve,” she said as she called time on Tory ”betrayals and lies”.

If the Conservatives are still baffled by their continuing lack of support, that is the key moment when they let down so many voters. Again and again, they used the excuse of the supra-national ECHR to fail to deliver any of the necessary curtailments of illegal migration but refused to contemplate leaving it. Why on earth would you vote for a party that embraced its own impotence?

As Farage quite rightly asked: “How it that an illegal immigrant is put at the top of the list for housing above veterans?” Indeed, veterans make up a high proportion of homeless people and yet their needs always appear to come second to those who’ve broken the law to enter our country illegally.

It’s amazing the current government cannot see the catastrophic impact such a toxic attitude is having on the recruitment of future soldiers. Senior SAS officers have questioned why the best recruits would take on the potential legal quagmire of special operations abroad.

Lawfare is now a serious threat to our national security as elite soldiers face possible prosecution over split-second battlefield decisions. The problem is so bad that reservists are being offered positions in the SAS.

Again and again, Labour is weakening our defences at home and abroad. With wide-open borders allowing criminals and terrorists into our land, idiotic decisions to hand back strategically important military bases, and now ongoing legal threats to our finest service personnel, left-wing lawyer politicians are failing to protect our country.

Donald Trump admits our soldiers are “among the greatest of all warriors”, so it’s high time Starmer and his legal buddies start recognising that and treating our veterans with the respect and support they deserve.

Farage acknowledged this by calling for a minute’s silence to remember the fallen at the end of his rally. A piper then played everyone off the stage – a stirring note of pride in our uniquely excellent armed forces.

Yet again, Reform seems to be better than our complacent government at gauging the national sentiment when it comes to our brave service men and women.