In March 1972 state forces in the north of Ireland arrested and interned a young man in Long Kesh. There, alongside dozens of other prisoners – mostly Catholics and Irish republicans – he endured imprisonment without trial. Though periodically released from captivity, he spent many of the following years trapped in a cage, despite not being convicted of any crime.
British prime minister Keir Starmer says it would be shameful if this man, now in his 70s, receives financial redress for the injustice he suffered. That’s because the man is Gerry Adams, a senior figure in a movement that fought against British colonial rule. "We will look at every conceivable way to prevent these types of cases claiming damages," said Starmer, speaking in Westminster last week. "And it's important I say that on the record."
Starmer’s comments come as his “moderate” government moves to “repeal and replace” legislation opposed by every community and political party on this island. The Northern Ireland Troubles Legacy Act 2023 blocks inquiries into deaths, gives immunity to British soldiers who cooperate with its mechanisms and prevents families from seeking justice through civil cases, even when new evidence emerges about their loved ones’ deaths. Labour, eager to present itself as a sensible counterweight to Tory excess and universally condemned legislation, has agreed to scrap it.
But now Starmer has a problem: Britain may be found liable for suffering it inflicted upon Irish republicans during the war euphemistically called “the Troubles”. The Legacy Act currently prevents Adams, and others whose detainment was ruled illegal by the British Supreme Court in 2020, from taking legal action. As Adams himself recently pointed out the court determined that internment violated the European Convention on Human Rights, as Interim Custody Orders were never properly sanctioned.
That’s why, Legacy Act or not, Starmer has made it clear he’ll work to ensure power remains unchallenged. When he speaks of taking measures to avoid compensating Gerry Adams, a victim of imperial violence, what's at stake isn't just money, but the legitimacy of British rule itself.
Protecting a national mythology
The Conservative Party had its reasons for creating the Legacy Act. Every injustice, every denied inquest, protects the national myth that sustains Britain – the belief that it has nothing to apologise for, that its empire was essentially a civilising force, spreading justice and democracy around the world.
Acknowledgement of the widespread criminal conduct of British security forces – the Stevens Inquiries, the Stalker-Sampson Inquiries, the De Silva Review – poses a challenge to this fiction. Without it Britain’s ruling class risks losing support for its past and current imperial projects.
A report published last year by the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights found that the British government had a policy of widespread impunity for security forces in the North of Ireland. Bitter Legacy: State Impunity in the Northern Ireland Conflict concluded that only a handful of British soldiers were imprisoned during this period, despite documented involvement in torture and murder. At the same time approximately 30,000 loyalists and republicans were jailed for paramilitary offences.
The study also documented how Britain blocked investigations into murders in which security forces were implicated. An expert panel examined 54 killings where state involvement was confirmed or suspected – in every case authorities deliberately ignored lines of inquiry.
Britain was not, as it would have its population believe, the mediator in a battle between loyalists and Irish republicans – it was a participant, outsourcing counterinsurgency to paramilitaries. But this can’t be accepted because it contradicts a carefully managed image of imperial benevolence.
‘Imperial power gets to shape the official account of a conflict’
The British ruling class tries to hide its crimes. In the 20th century, as colonies gained independence, Britain embarked on what it referred to as Operation Legacy. Colonial administrators received instructions to destroy records detailing torture, arbitrary detention and forced labour. In Malaysia documents were thrown in the ocean. In Kenya records of British crimes during the Mau Mau uprising burned. In Northern Rhodesia anything showing “racial prejudice” was destroyed. In India a week-long bonfire consumed the files.
When this policy became public in 2011 after legal action taken by Kenyan men accusing Britain of torture, disposing of the documents – the indisputable proof of the savagery of empire – was justified with excuses about getting rid of sensitive information
The Legacy Act, with its mandate to produce a “historic record,” is a similar attempt to obscure British crimes. It created the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Retrieval, a Downing Street-appointed body with the ability to withhold anything deemed sensitive to "national security."
Imperial power gets to shape the official account of a conflict in which it committed heinous crimes against its own claimed population.
‘An ambitious reset’
At a meeting in Dublin last year, then taoiseach Simon Harris said Keir Starmer spoke of Ireland in a “refreshing” manner. The focus of their discussions, according to a joint statement issued shortly afterwards, was to “agree an ambitious reset” of the “UK-Ireland” relationship.
“The leaders agreed that to take the UK-Ireland relationship to a new level and to deliver on the promise of that relationship,” it said. “The first of a new series of annual leader-level UK-Ireland summits would take place in March 2025.”
For someone like Harris it’s easy to be friends with Britain when ending partition is “not a priority” – improved relations with our neighbour, for the recently appointed foreign minister, doesn’t include challenging its ongoing occupation of Ireland nor demanding it agree to a border poll.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has accused Sinn Fein of a triumphalist and revisionist attitude towards the conflict, saying the Provisional IRA – not the British government nor loyalist paramilitaries with which they collaborated – “imposed” a war on Ireland. “I’d be careful of saying both sides,” he said before the general election last year.
Any reset between the Free State and London will preserve a story, a mythology, that serves both governments: the certainty that Irish republicans can never be legitimate actors. Adams cannot have been wronged by the state or anyone else. Whether the Legacy Act goes or stays, whether Anglo-Irish relations do indeed “improve”, this won’t change.
