Doug Beattie: The Ulster Unionist Party stood alone on legacy before to prevent a hierarchy of victims and will do again if the other parties seek a Stormont House solution

This is the second of the pre-election platforms by the leaders of the three main unionist parties. The TUV leader Jim Allister’s platform is just below and the DUP leader Gavin Robinson’s will be published next Saturday:

(Click here to read Jim Allister’s leader platform: ‘Those who sought to mislead you over the Irish Sea border now want your vote - the TUV, in contrast, has been consistent about the frontier,’ June 8)

General elections are invariably about the candidate, the political party and the polices they promote.

In most cases these policies find their inception in an agreed outcome.

Economic growth, tackling poverty, improving educational outcomes or tackling the issues surrounding our health service; yet that is where polices begin to differ as the ‘how’ becomes the main argument.

This can be said in regards to the government’s Legacy Act, where all of the main political parties, supported by victims and survivors groups, non-governmental organisations and the general public are totally against the Northern Ireland (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.

The likelihood that the amnesty element of the act will fall quite quickly once a new government is in place has now been joined by the call to repeal the whole act.

Without a doubt this would be a popular move and the right outcome, but the important question is ‘then what’.

There is talk that the Stormont House Agreement (SHA) legacy mechanisms should be reignited as it has support from four of the five main political parties, with only the Ulster Unionist Party opposing it.

Indeed, we stood alone in opposing this legislation for some of the very reasons the present Legacy Act has been opposed.

With the SHA it was made clear that only murders would be investigated. That means if you were left burned, blind, limbless, disabled or psychologically damaged, you will not get an investigation if there were no fatalities attached to the incident resulting in your injury.

Thousands of bombings and shootings, resulting in multiple attempted murders, will be swept under the carpet, their perpetrators given an amnesty in all but name.

The same can be said of those cases that have already had an open-source Historical Enquiries Team (HET) desktop review. They will get no further, in depth, investigation under the SHA.

Resources are being used as an excuse for not conducting these attempted murder or HET investigations; the same excuse used by the government in their establishment of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) so adamantly opposed today.

We also have the perverse situation with the SHA which means if you were kidnapped in Northern Ireland, taken across the border to be tortured and murdered then again you will not get an investigation.

This is because the SHA legacy mechanisms are geographically fixed, only murders in Northern Ireland will be investigated. This again gives perpetrators a free pass knowing the law in Northern Ireland is no longer looking for them.

The same for other murders outside this jurisdiction that had their origins inside Northern Ireland.

The support from Sinn Fein, the DUP, Alliance party and the SDLP for the SHA and the establishment of a parallel police force in the form of the Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) undermines our policing and justice system.

Our police force has a responsibility to police our past, present and future crime trends. To allow a parallel police force to operate, with its own chief constable with the same powers and standing as the PSNI chief constable yet without being answerable to the Policing Board or the Police Ombudsman is simple unworkable.

So, what does Labour do if they are the next government and they repeal the Legacy Act that created the ICRIR?

Firstly, we must treat every unsolved crime as a live case, whether it is murder, attempted murder, abuse or sexual crimes. If that crime leads the authorities outside the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland, then they must follow that evidence trail wherever it leads.

The Legacy Investigations Branch should be the main investigatory body, it should be resourced with extra qualified homicide investigators drawn from across the United Kingdom and the funding should come from central government on an enduring basis and not from the present Department of Justice Budget. This branch should be headed by a PSNI deputy chief constable (Legacy) answerable to the chief constable and the normal oversight mechanisms.

They should work on a cold case system in the same manner as any other force within the United Kingdom.

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) is an important body in in dealing with legacy cases. It is underfunded and under resourced and not set up to deal with complex legacy cases. Therefore, the PPS should be split into two areas under the control of the Director of Public Prosecutions. One section should deal with the normal day to day PPS workload while the other section should be solely for the purpose of dealing with legacy. Again, the legacy element must be funded by central government in an enduring manner with the ability to engage outside the jurisdiction, to pursue any case.

The last thing that needs to happen is for the Labour government to engage with the Irish government in an attempt to have the Irish set up a mirror system. They are opposed to the present Legacy Act but have done nothing to deal with legacy in the wider sense and in particular the sheer volume of attacks that emanated from the Republic of Ireland, leaving hundreds dead or injured, only for the perpetrators to return to the relative safety of the Irish Republic. They have a moral duty to deal with this and every effort should be made, including using legal avenues, to force them to face up to their responsibilities.

Nobody should be above the law, be they police, military, terrorist or politician. We must manage expectations but at the same time we must, where the opportunity arises, strive for truth, justice and accountability. The only distinction that should be made is that of victim verses perpetrator, there is no other side of this argument.

As we head towards a new government it is important that we have Northern Irish MPs that can address this issue with clear heads, sound plans and justice as their handrail. If the DUP, Sinn Fein, Alliance and the SDLP intend to go down the SHA route then the Ulster Unionist Party will oppose them to ensure there is no hierarchy of victim and that everyone has the chance, no matter how slim, of justice.

• Doug Beattie MC is MLA for Upper Bann and Ulster Unionist Party leader