European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I thank Mr Speaker for selecting this Adjournment debate?

Today is 11 March, and on every 11 March since the dreadful bombings in Madrid in 2004, it has been the European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism. This occasion gives us the opportunity to reflect on terror and the innocent victims of terror. It gives the House the opportunity to reflect on the impact that acts of terror have had on the institution of the House of Commons.

When I was elected in 2015, I entered Parliament alongside Jo Cox, who is memorialised behind me. She was cut down by a far-right extremist. I served for many a year with David Amess and had a great relationship with him, and he was struck down by an Islamic terrorist. When you look to either side of the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will note that under the door there are three heraldic plaques: one to Rev. Robert Bradford, one to Ian Gow and one to Airey Neave, all of whom were serving parliamentarians when they were cut down by Irish republican terrorists. It is little known that behind your Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, there are two further plaques: one to Sir Anthony Berry, who was killed in the Brighton bomb by Irish republican terrorists, and one to Sir Henry Wilson, a first world war hero and latterly an Irish Unionist Member of Parliament, who was cut down by Irish republican terrorists.

Occasions like this give us the opportunity to reflect, but it is important for us as parliamentarians to consider what we can do in the best interests of those we represent, and the legacy in Northern Ireland continues to be a sore that has not healed. The scars remain among communities of whatever constitutional aspiration, who have been affected by the onslaught of terror that we faced.

I am privileged to sit on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, but I was even more privileged last week, alongside colleagues who are present in the Chamber today, to meet a number of organisations that represent the interests of innocent victims. We met the 174 Trust, and we met victims at the WAVE Trauma Centre. We met victims represented by the South East Fermanagh Foundation—SEFF—which is an organisation that works on behalf of Fermanagh and Enniskillen victims. The most profound thing that they said to us was that, within their county of Fermanagh, 42 people were killed—40 of them by republican terrorists, and none by loyalists.

The people of Fermanagh did not turn to taking the law into their own hands; they put their trust and faith in law and order, and in the parts of our state that are there to protect us. That is most profound, because there is no other county in Northern Ireland where that can be said. There was one recurring theme throughout the engagement that we had during the course of those two days: victims wanted truth and justice.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for bringing forward this issue. His passion for victims is long-standing and admirable. Does he agree that we need to set in stone the truth about victims in Northern Ireland? For all the attention that is given to 10% of victims, the families of the 90% suffer in silence. Will this day ensure that true victims’ stories are told and remembered without any whitewashing whatsoever?

[Gavin Robinson]

I appreciate the intervention because there is a task on the part of the Government, with the legislation they are considering at the moment, on storytelling, reconciliation and the narrative that people wish to share. Their truth must be told and their truth known.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

I thank the right hon. Member for giving way; I know his time is precious. I want to associate myself with the remarks he made about Members of this House who were lost and about the moving visit we had last week with victims in Belfast and Fermanagh in relation to people who were murdered by perpetrators from various sides of the conflict. It showed their continuing pain and their fortitude, as the opening weeks of the Omagh inquiry have done. The SDLP supports a parallel Dublin inquiry on that. Does the right hon. Member agree with me that, in the current legacy discussion, a moment—an opportunity—is coming when we can assert that the needs of victims, not those of perpetrators, have primacy, and that we cannot afford to squander that opportunity?

[Gavin Robinson]

I am very grateful for the intervention from the hon. Lady. I think she is right that we cannot squander the opportunity, but for too long now I have heard voices within the Government say that the one thing the parties of Northern Ireland can agree on is their opposition to the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, but for very different reasons. Very often, we do not get the opportunity to fully explore those very different reasons, and for our part, we will never stand in the way of justice and we will always support innocent victims.

[David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for securing this important debate on such a moving subject. I, too, was very honoured to go with him and other members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee to visit SEFF in Fermanagh last week, and it was profoundly moving. Does he agree with me that, as part of dealing with this legacy, truth, justice and reconciliation must be intentional parts of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery going forward?

[Gavin Robinson]

It was interesting to hear the reflections of some who said, “Why do I need to reconcile? I’ve been blown up. I’ve been shot. I’ve lost my father, my mother, my sister, my brother. Why is the onus on me to reconcile? I should be honoured for the sacrifice that I’ve made or been forced to go through, but where is somebody coming along to say, ‘I’m sorry. You did not deserve what occurred to you or your family member, you didn’t need to live through the pain and you don’t deserve the scars that you bear.’?” So I agree with the hon. Member entirely that much more focus is required on reconciliation.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

As someone who had the honour of hosting an event on this day for all the years I was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, I commend the right hon. Member for securing this debate. However, does he agree with me that one of the most abiding and insidious hurts to victims of terrorism is the constant glorification of those who made them victims, particularly when it comes to those who sit in Government in Northern Ireland, by their attendance at events commemorating those who were the men of blood and who delivered death and destruction on our streets? Is that not one of the most hateful and insidious things that can be done to a victim, with the re-traumatisation that it brings?

[Gavin Robinson]

I am very grateful to the hon. and learned Member. I have two things to say to him on that. First, I am glad he organised—for 13 years, I think—an event at Stormont to mark European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism. Such an event also occurred yesterday, so his legacy lives on, and I was pleased to attend it, as I have on many occasions in the past.

Secondly, the hon. and learned Member is absolutely right. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet again—we met last week, but I met again yesterday—Margaret Veitch and Ruth Blair, who lost loved ones in the Enniskillen bomb. I reflected with them, and it resonates so much with this point, on the glorification of terror, particularly from those who have a responsibility to live by the Nolan principles and to fulfil the political offices they hold, yet who attend commemorations and glorify those who revelled in terror. The excuse they always use is, “We have a right to remember our dead.” That is what they say: they have a right to remember their dead. Margaret and Ruth lost family members by simply turning up to remember their war dead on Remembrance Sunday in Enniskillen, yet they hear their political leaders say, “We do this because we have an entitlement to remember our war dead.” Margaret and Ruth and their parents were offered no opportunity to remember, rightfully, those who made the sacrifice for freedom in our country.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He talks of truth and justice. He will be aware that the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 means that if prosecutions carry on, no one will serve more than two years in jail. If prosecutions carry on, people will do everything they can to cover up the truth in defending themselves. When people criticise the legacy Act, which did propose a truth and reconciliation commission, are they not really criticising a measure that would have given them a much better opportunity for the truth to come out, once the threat of prosecutions was removed, given that the punishment would not fit the crime even if someone was found guilty?

[Gavin Robinson]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have high regard for him. We explored these issues at great length when he chaired the Defence Committee and I was but a lowly member of it. The truth is that there are hundreds if not thousands of individuals in Northern Ireland who have been prosecuted already. How often do we see them go to meet their victims, or the families of their victims? How often do we see them try to apply balm on the wound that has never healed? And those are the individuals who have received justice.

I started to talk about truth and justice before the explosion of interventions. They are important for this debate. For the last number of years, the terminology from this Chamber has been very clearly, “You’re not going to get justice, but we can offer you truth. And the only way you can get truth is if we deny justice.” That is what the legacy Act presented to the people of Northern Ireland. That is why we opposed it. They want justice. They want their day in court. They have had to suffer evasions of justice in Northern Ireland for decades. We did not support the Belfast agreement because of the release of prisoners. We do not support the notion that those who take life could be sentenced for two years—sentenced for much longer, but only have to serve two years. Nor did we support on-the-runs letters. Nor did we support amnesties for terrorists throughout the Labour Government proposals or the Conservative Government proposals, because the approach that denies justice is one that will never allow the wounds to heal.

I want to reflect on a number of institutions we have that are supposed to aid justice, truth and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. One of them is the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, which was established to allow members of the community who did not support the police to buy into the police, to get confidence in the police. Yet I am sorry to say in this debate today that we have a police ombudsman in whom I have no confidence—none whatsoever. We have a police ombudsman who constructed the notion of collusion. She was struck down by the courts, so she constructed the notion of collusive behaviours. She was struck down by the courts. More recently, she has been missing in action: she is fit to do the job; she is unfit to do the job; she is being investigated by the West Midlands police herself. Yet whether she is obstructing in her role or not, I will raise one family, one gentleman: Alan Black.

Alan Black was a workman who was out to work with his colleagues. All of them, bar one, were Protestants. In 1976 in Kingsmill, all bar one were attacked by the IRA. When asked to identify themselves, the one individual who identified himself as a Catholic was allowed to leave. Eleven of Alan’s colleagues were murdered that day for no other reason than that they had a Protestant faith. Alan survived. He went to the police ombudsman looking for answers on the investigation 14 years ago. He had an inquest, which concluded 11 months ago. We hear from the ombudsman’s office that it is ready to report, but, 11 months later, there has still been no outcome, no publication and no report for Alan. Alan is an old man now. He is an ill man because of the attack. He has suffered greatly, yet he put his faith in the organisations in which he and members of our community should be able to have confidence, and he has received nothing.

The Omagh inquiry started five weeks ago. The first four weeks were testimonies from the families who lost someone so tragically that day. Four months after the Belfast agreement was signed—four months after, when society was meant to be basking in peace—29 people and two unborn babies were killed that day in Omagh. The inquiry has a cross-border dimension: when the courts in Belfast said in 2021 that there should be an inquiry in Omagh, they said there also needed to be one in the Republic of Ireland, because the bomb was constructed in the Republic of Ireland and was planted by a Provisional IRA bomb team who were operating from the Republic of Ireland, travelled from the Republic of Ireland and escaped to the Republic of Ireland. The hon. Member for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna) indicated her support for such an inquiry in the south. It is for this reason that answers are required.

What do we have so far? Reluctance on the part of the Irish Government—there is nothing new in that. The Irish Government have singularly failed to do anything on legacy apart from criticise the British Government for the past 30 years. During the troubles, they allowed people to hide in the Irish Republic, armed people in the Irish Republic and would not extradite terrorists from the Irish Republic, yet today they stand and look square in the eye the families of the 29 Omagh victims and say, “We are sorry—we are not going to do that for you. We are not going to give you answers.” The same bomb team responsible for Omagh were responsible for 20 bombings in 1997 and 1998. Whether it was in Banbridge, Portadown, Lisburn, Newry or Moira—right throughout Northern Ireland—they were making their mark and making their voice heard in the run-up to peace negotiations. It is an outrage.

That the Irish Government still stand back and say they will not provide an inquiry is a disgrace. They have offered honeyed words for years, yet they do nothing to aid the sorrow. They will not provide the conditions that would allow us to challenge Garda Dermot Jennings, who is accused of having said “We will let one more through, lads,” because he knew the bombing team. Who is going to challenge and question the J2 Irish intelligence officials and ask them the questions? Our inquiry cannot do it, because it does not have the powers. I know the Government are considering a memorandum of understanding with the Irish Government, and that is important. However, if that does not allow for the production of people as well as papers, it will never work. It is why there has to be an inquiry in the Republic of Ireland, too, and I am glad there is broad support for that.

The Committee on the Administration of Justice in Northern Ireland—with which I struggle, Madam Deputy Speaker—published a brilliant report in the last four weeks castigating the Irish Republic for its total failure to do anything on legacy over the past 30 years. It has no legacy bodies, no legacy investigations unit, no historical enquiries team and no ombudsman service; it has no infrastructure whatsoever to answer questions on legacy, and no infrastructure whatsoever to aid the healing of the past.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

What concerns many people in Northern Ireland is that often, when things happen in Northern Ireland that are of a particular disposition, the Republic of Ireland’s Government will weigh in heavily to press our Government to do certain things. However, it seems that on many occasions when things happen on which our Government should make representations to the Republic’s Government, they fail adequately to do so.

[Gavin Robinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At a summit last week, not one word on these issues emerged, save the Irish Government saying they are not yet quite ready to withdraw their challenge against the British Government for the legacy Act. They ruled against an amnesty being provided, just as we did, but they decided to challenge their near neighbours in the British Government through the European courts. They decided to do that without trying to address these issues, yet when the onus is on them—when the shoe is on the other foot—they offer nothing.

Just this evening, the Northern Ireland Assembly passed a motion to say that the Irish Government should hold an inquiry into Omagh, and I agree. It was amended by the DUP and unanimously supported by every party in Stormont. That is a message that I hope that the Minister will take to the Irish Government about the strength of feeling on this issue. We looked a lot of victims in the eye last week, but we cannot continue, year after year, to look victims in the eyes and say nice things, but offer no hope, offer no truth and offer no justice.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

Let me briefly mention that motion that has just taken been debated in the Assembly, which was secured by the Ulster Unionist party and amended by the DUP. We often hear in this place that when all parties stand together in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Government will react. Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in asking the Minister to respond to that debate?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Mr Robinson, there are nine minutes remaining of this Adjournment debate.

[Gavin Robinson]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I took that intervention because it was a powerful point, and I am grateful for your latitude.

I am delighted that the Minister is here this evening. I hope that she responds positively. I hope that she recognises the pain and the anguish, as she herself has met individuals in Northern Ireland. There is a long way to go on providing the answers, the truth and the justice. We will not be found wanting, and I hope the Labour Government will not either.