Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Debate between Colum Eastwood and Conor McGinn

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Colum Eastwood]

The right hon. Member is absolutely right. The families involved—we do have to be careful—in those investigations are largely very happy about the way in which Jon Boutcher’s team have dealt with them. But, of course, some people—a lot of people—do not want the truth to get out: people in the British Government, people in paramilitary organisations, and some people who were in both of those things at the same time. They do not want the truth to come out because they are very worried that the glorified version of their history actually turns out to be a dirty little war.

Stephen McConomy was 11 years old when he was shot in the back of the head at very close range by a British soldier firing a plastic bullet in Derry in 1982. His brother Emmet, who has been fighting for justice ever since, says that the “real winners” of this legislation are the perpetrators of violence, and he is absolutely right. Some of the files in Stephen’s case will not be opened until 2071, almost 100 years after Stephen’s murder.

James Miller, whose grandfather David Miller was killed by the IRA’s horrific bomb in Claudy in 1972, said:

“I describe it as the family having a sore, and that sore is there all the time—it’s open and we just want that sore to heal.”

James went on:

“They are just closing the whole process down…for a reason…. A lot of stuff may come out that will make the government look bad.”

That is what this is about. I have been dealing with this for 20 years. Although we work tirelessly on this—lots of people did in political parties in Northern Ireland—I have always believed that the dark forces within the state will do all they can to prevent the full truth of what happened from coming out. Some people say that they oppose the Bill because it creates a moral equivalence between the British Army and paramilitary organisations. That is not why I oppose it. I oppose it because it benefits murderers, whether or not they were wearing a uniform. That is a fairly simple principle to stand by.

What we are talking about here is much more important than has been mentioned. We are talking about how we can build a future together—a reconciled future for our people. Some of my colleagues here want that to be within the United Kingdom; I want it to be within a new united Ireland. But I know that, to get to that place, we cannot keep glorifying the ugliness and horribleness of the past.

Whatever the future brings, we still have to come together as a community, but the Bill gives cover to those who are putting Ulster Volunteer Force flags up lampposts or singing “Up the ‘Ra” in pubs. I appeal to anybody who thinks that that is a good way to bring society back together again to talk to some of the victims I speak to regularly, many of whom I know very well. All those things hurt them. Although the rest of us have been allowed to move on and build a life as a result of the peace process, they are still stuck, and not because they want to be. They are more future-focused than anybody I have ever met, because they do not want their grandchildren to stay stuck having to deal with the mess that they have been left.

I wish that we did not have to be in this Chamber. I am glad that the Labour party has committed to repealing the Bill once it is law but, in reality, between now and the new Labour Government, a lot of people could have little letters that they can bandy about because they will have got away with destroying lives and families, and this British Government are giving them a blank cheque to do it.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood). I want to speak in favour of the Lords amendments, particularly amendment 44, relating to immunity.

Towns and villages in St Helens—like those in your constituency, Mr Deputy Speaker—have strong and historic links to the Army, particularly the Cheshire and Lancashire Regiments. I have a significant, active and very supportive armed forces community locally, and I hope that veterans and their families would say in return that I have always respected, represented and worked hard for them. But I am also honest with them when we talk about the issues in this Bill or about Northern Ireland more generally, because there are not legions of veterans being paraded before the courts. There are no vexatious complaints. There is no witch hunt. It is a myth, and it is a dangerous and disingenuous one.

I want to be honest with the House and with myself too. I sometimes think we should just draw a line under this whole thing—that it would be the easiest thing to do—and then I realise how selfish of me that is. I say to myself, “How dare you be so selfish?” and I ask myself, “Easy for who?” I remind myself that I have no authority, politically, legally and, most of all, morally, to tell anybody to forget, to move on and to put it all behind them—none of us do. What I have learned is that, while legacy is spoken of as something historical, it is not just history; it is something lived by the victims and their families in the present, every day.

I have spoken before in this House of things that were done where I grew up in South Armagh, the place I love and am so proud to be from: Kingsmills and the Reaveys—too much and too many. There is the realisation for me that, even now, as Christy Moore sang in “North and South”,

“There is no feeling so alone

As when the one you’re hurting is your own.”

We can all point to those cases that are beyond tears because of their awfulness, their brutality and the sheer human cost, but it is those that we do not often recall and that are only remembered by those who knew and loved them that are affected by the Bill—like Martin Rowland, who was 26 when he was shot dead on 5 October 1979, his body left on the Quarter Road in Camlough. He is remembered by locals as a quiet, inoffensive fella. His family said at the time,

“He was an enemy to no man.”

No one ever got any answers about why he was murdered, never mind who killed him, although it is widely suspected that there was a strong element of collusion between loyalists and Crown forces. Martin’s sister and brothers are dead now. Does that mean he should be forgotten or that he does not deserve the truth?

I told my father, Pat, who knew Martin, that I intended to mention him, and he was pleased, but he—a lifelong Republican and former Sinn Féin councillor—said,

“there was also a UDR man from Bessbrook shot dead… that morning. It would be disrespectful to mention one neighbour without mentioning another.”

So I rang my friend Danny Kennedy, a former Minister and deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist party, who told me about George Hawthorne, a 37-year-old father of three who had left the UDR the year before and was murdered on his way to work as a forklift driver at the timber yard in Newry. His wife, sadly deceased, worked with my mother in the furniture shop in the village. They were quiet, civil people. Should that be forgotten or dismissed? I do not tell these tales together to be self-righteous or to tick the dreaded what-aboutery box. I tell them to illustrate that this stuff is complicated, it is personal, and it still affects us all, because it happened to all of us or to people we know and people we love.

When I take my kids to South Armagh now from St Helens, they take great joy in winding up their uncle and their granda as we travel from the airport in Belfast by cheering when they see a Union flag flying in some of my hon. Friends’ constituencies. You do not have to look very hard at this time of year—there is constant noise all the way down the motorway. They say, “Look, dad, there’s our flag. They’re welcoming us home,” because kids are great.

When we pop in for a cupán tae—a cup of tea—in McCooey’s in Newry, or I see my friend Michael O’Hare in Whitecross, the conversation often turns to Majella O’Hare and what a great girl she was. They talk about her as if she were here today—playing out the front, happy and without a care in the world, like my two—but she was 12 years old when she was shot by a soldier of the Parachute Regiment in 1976. In 2011, the Government apologised for her unjustifiable killing. That was welcome, but what is it worth if this Bill becomes law, and how can there be any justice or peace for her family when the files relating to her death have been closed until 2065? The O’Hare family—like almost every family, survivor and victims group—oppose the Bill. That speaks more about it than I ever could.