THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: THE (UK) LEGACY BILL

The British Conservative government’s behaviour in forcing through the Legacy Bill which is effectively a nod and a wink to the British armed forces, that they can murder in the states interests with impunity. It erodes any illusion that the Tories care one iota for the citizens of any part of this island of Ireland. The chauvinistic arrogance displayed in the Tories behaviour which has now received Royal Assent from the British Monarch Charles is an ode to the most brutal and evil days of the draconian British Empire.

The Tories Legacy bill which is universally opposed rides roughshod over the rights of the families of victims to ever ascertain truth or justice. According to the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, the UK government is in breach of its  international human rights obligations. It has been described as being designed to protect British soldiers, handing them the perpetrators all the power while debilitating the rights of victims. It’s astonishing that Tories have managed to unite all five of the main political parties in the North in their outrage at the Bill, as well the Irish government and other Irish parties. Not to mention the concern it has raised in Europe, the US, internally in the UK and in the UN. The only ones who actually support it are the Tories themselves and British Army veterans.

At the core of this is the lack of sovereignty of the people of the Northern Six Counties. How they are governerned and what rights they actually have to protect themselves is called into question. Regardless of your political outlook, unless people as citizens have it within their grasp to actually affect political outcomes they do not live in an effective democracy. This issue has blatantly shown that citizens of the North can not even claim to have the right to the most basic human right, that to life itself, the Tories through their Bill have denied them the right to exist. The intransigence of the Tory government in how it treats people, whether be immigrants/refugees stuffing them into places that are unfit for purpose or how they treated people during covid, particularly the elderly while they literally partied their way through it. This is not something that can be swept under the carpet, how can any politician of any persuasion claim they are working in the best interests of those they represent while they continue to advocate for a system that would deny them basic democracy and fundamental human rights. 

It is our view in the 1916 Societies that only when we live in a system that allows its citizens every opportunity to live a full life, can society truly prosper. In the words of James Connolly, ‘Our demands, most moderate, we only want the earth’. That is to say we only want our children, our families, our citizens to have the chances to thrive that every person on the planet has regardless of wealth or status. The first step on that road to garner the rights and protection of citizens is establishing a 32 County Socialist Republic on the island of Ireland.