A betrayal to shame our nation

MP who served in Afghanistan and former veterans minister

THERE is no excuse for this appalling situation to continue.

That veterans who served in the bloodiest conflict this country has seen for 50 years are still taking their lives in 2021 because they cannot find help is a shocking stain on our nation.

It is a total betrayal of these men and their families.

Veterans’ care does exist but accessing it and navigating clear care pathways remain deeply challenging – impossible, I would suggest, for the poor souls who reach the levels of desperation we have seen this week.

Tackling this specific challenge of navigating care was precisely the overarching objective in setting up the UK’S first Office for Veterans’ Affairs in 2019.

But as that was a political decision by this Prime Minister – one for which he deserves credit – allowing the situation on veterans’ care to continue as it stands is a political choice too.

It was political choice inside No10 that prevented me talking about help available for those veterans at risk of taking their own lives.

The PM himself made a political choice not to fulfil the veterans’ pledge he signed when he became leader of the Conservative Party.

We remain the only Five Eyes nation (the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand) without a Veterans’ Minister in Cabinet – crucial in pulling together all arms of government and making them work for veterans.

Similarly it is a political choice to let our 80-year-old veterans be hauled before the courts in Northern Ireland and hounded by those they fought against, in an attempt to rewrite the history of the Troubles.

We are pretty much the last country on Earth that continues to treat its veterans in such a way. I fought with them and this breaks my heart.

This is not my “hobby-horse”, as I know many of my colleagues see it. This is the nation’s duty. At some point a Prime Minister will have the courage to make it so.