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LONDON — A sacked minister accused Boris Johnson’s “distrustful” government of being guilty of a “gross betrayal of people who signed up to serve in the military.”
Johnny Mercer, a former army officer, left the U.K. government on Tuesday night after what he saw as a failure by the U.K. government to prevent ex-soldiers being prosecuted for alleged crimes during the decades-long Troubles conflict in Northern Ireland.
“If I’m made to feel like I’m the last man in the room who’s willing to fulfil our manifesto commitments, there’s something wrong. We reached that point, so I left,” Mercer told Times Radio Wednesday.
Johnson pledged to protect British veterans who served in Northern Ireland from prosecution during the 2019 Conservative leadership election campaign. But the issue is contentious in Northern Ireland, and campaigners argue that former troops must be subject to due process.
Mercer was set to quit but was sacked before he could do so after failing to secure specific protections for Northern Ireland veterans in the government’s Overseas Operations Bill.
“The reality is that for these people, their experiences after having served this nation, 50 years later, they are constantly being dragged over to Northern Ireland, and asked to re-live their experiences,” Mercer said.
And he added: “For me, it’s a gross betrayal of people who signed up to serve in the military. And as everybody knows, I’m not having it.”
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