The government is playing politics with our armed forces – and looking to embarrass Labour

The Overseas Operations Bill is a feeble piece of legislation. It doesn’t do what the government claims, which is to stop “vexatious” claims against British troops over historical allegations. So the government is trying to use it instead to embarrass Keir Starmer and to paint him as unpatriotic. 

The bill was first debated in parliament on Wednesday, and John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, pointed out that it does not actually deal with the injustices that most animate Conservative MPs. It does not cover Northern Ireland – admittedly the clue is in the word “overseas” – but nor does it cover allegations about past actions. All it does is make it slightly harder to bring cases alleging abuse or torture against British troops operating abroad in future. 

That means it will have no effect on cases brought against people who served in Northern Ireland, where the immunity granted to some as part of the Good Friday Agreement is such a sore point with some former soldiers and their defenders in parliament. And it means it will do nothing to prevent lawyers bringing repeated and overlapping cases against troops posted to Iraq and Afghanistan, where combat operations ceased long ago. 

Both sides of the House of Commons were united in condemning unscrupulous lawyers who exploited the system, and sympathised with service personnel who had been through years of torment before being cleared. 

But Labour has its reservations about putting obstacles in the way of the UK’s commitment to the prohibition of torture, so the Conservatives thought they could tempt the opposition into voting against the bill. The Tories could then criticise Labour for failing to stand by our troops. 

Healey and Starmer were not going to fall into that trap, so Labour MPs were instructed to abstain in the vote. Perhaps it was this refusal to play the Tories’ game that so annoyed Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, that he condemned Labour’s “illegal wars” for having got the country into “this mess” – forgetting that many of his colleagues, including the prime minister, had voted for them. 

The cynicism of the Tory operation was confirmed on Wednesday night. Within a couple of hours of the vote, Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, sent an email to Tory supporters headed: “The only party who will act to protect our troops.” He contrasted Starmer’s speech to his virtual party conference the day before, in which he asserted Labour’s claim to patriotism, with that night’s vote, in which “Labour refused to back our bill to protect our soldiers and veterans”. 

It was politics at its crudest, but not very effective. Starmer suffered the minor embarrassment of losing three parliamentary private secretaries – PPS appointments are the first rung on the ministerial (or shadow ministerial) ladder: backbench MPs attached to frontbench teams as a form of work experience. They are still backbenchers, but they are subject to the same voting discipline as shadow ministers. So Nadia Whittome, Beth Winter and Olivia Blake, three MPs elected just 10 months ago, voted against the bill and gave up their PPS posts. 

In Whittome’s case there was added embarrassment on both sides, because she was PPS to Starmer himself, and because she seemed to think the next day that she could continue in the job. The leader’s office quickly made it clear that she couldn’t. 

Starmer’s embarrassment is limited, however: only 18 Labour MPs ignored the whip and voted against the bill. If that is the maximum strength of the Socialist Campaign Group among his 202 MPs, it is a number he can live with, even if it does include – perhaps especially if it includes – the former leadership team of Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Rebecca Long-Bailey. 

The Conservative attempt to play politics with the armed forces has failed, and Starmer’s authority as leader of a party determined to give no ground on national security has once again been marginally strengthened.