Zarah Sultana MP speaks on Ireland: “A Moral Test of Our Time”

On 23 October Zarah Sultana, MP, spoke at a public meeting at Coventry’s Irish Society on the Irish Legacy issue, organised by Labour Movement for Irish Unity. In this important speech, here is what she said.

I represent Coventry South, which has a proud, vibrant Irish community whose families have contributed so much to this city, to its industries, to its trade union movement and towards its culture of solidarity and internationalism.

 Some of you know that I was able to visit Derry for the 15th anniversary of the Saville report, marking the truth about Bloody Sunday and the ongoing pursuit of justice

 Saville finally told the world what the people of Derry knew all along: that on Bloody Sunday 14 unarmed civil rights protesters were shot dead by the British army and that then the army and British government lied about it for decades.

There were forty years of pain, forty years of campaigning, with smears, with silence: forty years demanding what should have been given freely, the truth. And that truth, as powerful as it was,  pointed towards something even bigger: that the injustice of Bloody Sunday was not an isolated act; it was part of a wider system of state cover up, of violence and impunity; a system that treated working people’s Irish lives as expendable in the name of order and security. And that same injustice runs through so many other stories.

Stories like that of Sean Brown, a husband, a father, a community figure, abducted and murdered in 1997. And nearly three decades later his family are still being denied the truth. Files redacted, evidence withheld and inquiries delayed beyond reason.

For too long the British state has hidden behind national security to conceal its role in the killings of people like Sean. And for too long successive governments have treated the truth as something that has to be managed, rather than actually delivered. This is not reconciliation; it is cruelty and suffering, disguised as process. Families like the Browns deserve closure, not obstruction, not more cover ups.

 The Conservative government’s Legacy and Reconciliation Act was one of the most shameful pieces of legislation passed in modern times. It offered the facto amnesty for crimes committed, it closed off legal routes for victims, and it replaced accountability with a process designed to protect the most powerful, rather than the bereaved. Every major political party in the north of Ireland opposed it, every victims’ group condemned it and the Irish government took the extraordinary step of taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights. Because it seems that everyone, but the British state, could see that the legislation was a law to bury the truth.

Today we have a Labour government who was elected on a mandate of change and there was, and still is, an opportunity to act differently. Repealing the Legacy Act is the correct first step. But it has to be replaced with an Irish legacy framework that is rooted in truth, in accountability and respect for victims. And we have to therefore talk in detail about the limitations of the current proposals where the confidence of victims and survivors isn't there. So, while the repeal of the 2023 act is welcome, some families are worried the new proposals do not command the necessary trust, and a process that families do not believe in is not going to work and cannot deliver justice. With this new process independence and transparency are still under question.

The proposed Commission - will it genuinely be independent, fully transparent in its disclosure and will it be committed to engaging with those who are impacted? Anything less risks repeating the mistakes of the past. While some of the halted inquests may be reinstated, people have genuine fears that the framework could still limit access to truth, leaving families again without the answers that they desperately want.

National security again remains a threat in terms of the veto and if the government retains the ability to block investigations in the name of national security this process will be undermined before it even really begins.

And so we need political will. Getting the right legislation through parliament will be challenging, but we need to build coalitions to do that, and any delay risks eroding public confidence further.

Facing the truth is never easy, it means addressing uncomfortable facts including the reality that the British state committed and concealed human rights violations and abuses in Ireland. It means admitting that these abuses were not exceptional, rather they were systematic. It means admitting that there can be no lasting peace that is built on denial. So, we need honesty, we need empathy and we need our politicians to have the political will to tell the truth, even when that truth exposes the real systemic failures of power. This is a moral test of our time.

When future generations look back, they will ask whether we stood with families who refuse to forget. We have to say unconditionally that we stand with the families of Derry, the families of the working class, with every community still living with the pain of the past striving to deliver the justice that they have been demanding for decades.

Because without truth there cannot be real peace and there cannot be real reconciliation. And without accountability trust in institutions of the state continues to fail. And so, the legacy of the conflict that we have been talking about cannot be rewritten by the law, it can only be healed through truth and accountability. And no government, despite whatever colour rosette they are wearing, should ever be afraid of the truth.

And so, we have no choice but to keep pushing, to keep speaking and to keep standing on the side of families who for too long have carried the weight of history on their own shoulders. Because the families of Bloody Sunday show us that truth will always outlive every single lie; just as the family of Sean Brown remind us justice delayed is justice denied.

For as long as I am a Member of Parliament, I will always stand with families fighting for truth and justice. We have to address the truth of what has happened in northern Ireland for communities to be able to truly heal.

 Thank you.