Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has posted footage of Bloody Sunday in a video where she effectively calls for British soldiers to be immune from prosecution for their crimes. Bloody Sunday was the 1972 massacre British troops carried out in Derry, killing 14 people and wounding at least 15 others.
Badenoch used the video to criticise Keir Starmer’s revamping of the Legacy Act. That was the legislation brought in by the Tories in 2023, intended primarily to shut down investigations into historic crimes by British soldiers. It terminated many in-progress cases related to the ‘Troubles’ in the north of Ireland.
Labour has since been restructuring the Act, though politicians across the spectrum in the Six Counties have criticised it for not going far enough to assist victims. Some veterans, and now Badenoch, have said it offers insufficient protection to ex-soldiers. Under pressure from the right, Labour’s stance has been to obsessively centre veterans’ interests in virtually every public statement on the matter.
No accountability as it is, but Badenoch and the right want to bury all army crimes
In reality, even pre-Legacy Act, there has been virtually zero accountability for the numerous murders carried out by British soldiers during the years of violence in the north of Ireland. Just in the last week, troops named only as Soldier A and E were found to have had no justification for a series of brutal shootings they committed in the Springhill area of Belfast in 1972.
Despite this, they face no accountability. The identities of the soldiers had been ‘lost’, with the inquest coroner Justice Scoffield heavily implying there had been a cover-up. Late last year, victims’ families hoped ‘Soldier F’ in a Belfast court might find the ex-paratrooper guilty of murders during Bloody Sunday. The huge delay in opening proceedings ultimately meant evidence was by then minimal, and he was acquitted.
Despite all this, Badenoch wants further means to bury brutality from her nation’s armed forces. In the video, she said:
Think about the men and women who served this country during the Troubles. People who risked their lives to protect others, to defend our nation to keep the peace.
Far from keeping the peace, the mass imprisonment, collusion with paramilitaries and massacres carried out by British security forces only inflamed the conflict.
The Tory leader continued:
Now ask yourself is it right that decades later they’re dragged back into court? Because that’s what Labour’s new bill will do. It’ll put elderly veterans through fresh legal battles at the end of their lives. This is not justice. In government we passed laws to protect our veterans, because Britain should stand behind our veterans, not put them on trial decades later.
The simple answer is: yes, obviously it’s right that anyone who commits serious crimes should be held accountable for their actions. The irony is that the Legacy Act actually blocked investigations into *killings of British soldiers,*whose families were also entitled to have their deaths looked into.
Even ordinary soldiers abandoned under mass cover-up plans
Of course, this is proof that Badenoch and her ilk don’t really care about ordinary soldiers. As ever, they’re just pawns who can be wielded for political capital when required. The ideal scenario for the warmongering right is an army capable of deploying the lawless violence increasingly becoming the world’s norm, then have the means to cover it all up.
Veterans’ legal support group the Centre for Military Justice (CMJ) pointed out this shafting of ex-armed forces personnel in July 2025, saying:
Those purporting to act in the interests of veterans have, so far, had absolutely nothing to say about the shutting down of investigations into the maiming and murder of hundreds of service personnel when the Legacy Act was passed.
The CMJ also stressed that soldiers are not immune to laws constraining their conduct. They said:
But as a matter of principle, soldiers and veterans are not entitled to immunity from prosecution where there is evidence to suggest serious criminality, any more than anyone else. To suggest otherwise severely undermines previous governments’ belated apologies for unlawful killings by soldiers revealed by recent inquests, and brings the armed forces into disrepute.
The Conservatives have since taken Badenoch’s video down, and issued an apology via a spokesperson, who said:
We apologise for the inclusion of this material, which should not have been used and will not be used again.
No public apology is present on the party’s social media pages. MP for Foyle (which covers Derry) Colum Eastwood branded the video as “insensitive” and “disgraceful”. He said:
…an anonymous apology to the media from the Conservative Party isn’t enough. Kemi Badenoch needs to show leadership and apologise directly to the families.
Bloody Sunday Trust chair Tony Doherty also condemned Badenoch, saying:
This is grossly insulting to the families and the people of Derry, and many other places in the north, who know only too well what role of the British army meant for them. It meant murder, lies and cover-up of many crimes that have never ever seen the inside of a courtroom.
Featured image via the Hill
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