The party once led by a lady “not for turning” seems to have had a change of heart.
Twice in one day, the UK government has U-turned on agreements related to Northern Ireland.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the Commons the Northern Ireland Protocol “does not have the support necessary in one community…”
The Unionist community never supported a Brexit border in the Irish Sea but that did not stop the government agreeing to one.
It is, in the words of the Belfast Telegraph’s Northern Ireland Editor Sam McBride: “…a huge ideological U-turn.”
But amid the furore over the UK government’s threat to override elements of the treaty it signed with the EU, another U-turn went almost unnoticed.
In 2020, the government pledged to introduce a statute of limitations on historical prosecutions in Northern Ireland.
It committed to granting British Army veterans immunity, even though the de facto amnesty would also have applied to former terrorists.
But the legislation published on Tuesday requires those involved in killings to earn immunity by participating in a truth recovery process.
That is not just a U-turn from the commitment made last year, it is a U-turn from the Stormont House Agreement (2014), which addressed the legacy issue.
The new legislation effectively forces victims of violence to make a choice between truth and justice.
Perpetrators who provide information about an incident will be granted immunity from prosecution.
Image: Cathy McCann’s father was shot dead and 20 years later she survived an IRA bomb
Cathy McCann is a victim and a survivor of the Northern Ireland troubles. Her father was shot dead by the B Specials, a reserve police force.
Twenty years later, she survived an IRA bombing that claimed the lives of three policemen and a nun.
Still living with trauma, she said: “There’s never a day goes by that I don’t think of Sister Catherine and the three policemen who were murdered.
“The process of justice has never knocked on the door and that concerns me.”
Image: Colin Davidson has painted 18 bereaved relatives who bear silent witness to the loss of the troubles
Artist Colin Davidson has painted 18 bereaved relatives who bear silent witness to the loss of the troubles.
He does not underestimate the challenge of addressing the past but says it does not compare to what victims and survivors have endured.
He said: “Dealing and unravelling the complexity of our past is not an easy task.
“But it’s an easier task to deal with the past than it is to pick up the limbs and body parts of your loved one after they’ve been blown to bits on the street.
“It’s an easier task to deal with the past than it is to bury your only child who was killed because of the street that they grew up on.”
