Starmer worked for free to enable veteran prosecutions whilst our forces were at war
The latest great betrayal is by far the worst. Starmer worked pro bono to extend the ECHR to the battlefield. Yes, in war, under fire, we expect our military to adhere to human rights legislation.
We always knew that Keir Starmer’s human rights lawyer background would keep coming home to haunt us, but not this many times. But the latest revelations must be the worst so far and nothing short of treachery towards every man and woman who has worn the uniform, in the name of ideological human rights laws.
It’s now emerged that in 2007, our Prime Minister didn’t just participate in legal manoeuvres that opened the floodgates for the witch hunt against Iraq veterans, he volunteered and did it for free. While our soldiers were fighting an insurgency in the dust of Basra, our special forces on secret operations around the globe, Starmer was back in London, working pro bono to ensure the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was extended to the battlefield. They are risking their lives in life and death situations and he was secretly making moves against them.
For clarity, in 2007 British forces were active in the following areas;
Active Combat Zones
Iraq (Operation Telic): ~5,500 troops. Centered in Basra (Air Station and Palace) and the Maysan Province.
Afghanistan (Operation Herrick): ~7,800 troops. Primarily in Helmand Province (Camp Bastion, Sangin, Musa Qala) and Kabul.
Special Forces (UKSF) Deployments
Baghdad, Iraq: Task Force Black/Knight, targeting Al-Qaeda leadership.
Northern Iraq: Covert operations near Taji and the Syrian border.
Southern Afghanistan: High-value target “kill or capture” missions in the Taliban heartlands.
A legal noose around our forces necks
Let’s be clear about what this meant in practice. By successfully arguing for this legal change, Starmer helped create the framework that allowed thousands of claims to be levelled against our troops. It paved the way for the likes of the disgraced Phil Shiner to harass veterans for years, dragging them through endless investigations, reinvestigations, and the soul destroying threat of prosecution long after they had returned to civilian life after risking their lives serving their country.
It is one thing for a barrister to take a case based on the cab rank rule. It is quite another to volunteer your time to work pro bono to find new ways to tie the hands of our military.
The Left’s Institutional Hostility
This isn’t just about a single legal case, it’s about a mindset. For years, the Left has viewed our Armed Forces not as the shield of the nation deserving respect, but as a problem to be managed by international courts and human rights activists.
As Kemi Badenoch and Johnny Mercer have rightly pointed out, this is a ‘complete disgrace.’ Mercer, who has spent years fighting for the rights of veterans, was blunt. Starmer was so keen on changing the law to prosecute our forces, that he insisted on doing them for nothing.
And don’t be fooled by the Downing Street so called clarifications claiming he was just an intervener. The result of those legal interventions was a decade of misery for British heroes. While Starmer was climbing the greasy pole of the legal and political establishment, veterans were having their lives ruined by the very legal precedents he helped establish. Remember some of the other pro bono cases Starmer took defending the most disgusting murdering individuals on the planet.
He flies the flag but disgraces it
Starmer keeps wrapping himself in the flag when the cameras are rolling, talking about national security and service. But service means something very different to a soldier in a firefight than it does to a high flying human rights lawyer in a temperature controlled courtroom.
If Starmer truly cared about our veterans, he wouldn’t be repealing the legislation meant to protect them from legacy prosecutions in Northern Ireland. He wouldn’t have spent his career trying to make it easier for foreign courts to second guess the split second decisions made by soldiers under fire.
We have a Prime Minister who has demonstrated, through his own voluntary actions, that his sympathies lie with the legal activists rather than the British soldier, or from his other actions, the general British public.
Our veterans deserve better than a leader who spent his private time building the gallows for their careers. It’s time he stopped the spin and offered a full, unreserved apology to the men and women whose lives were upended by his pro bono hobby.
But he wont, he is more interested in human rights, minorities and ideologies.