Labour makes contemporary pledge to nuclear heroes
Nuclear veterans have been told they DO have the backing of Keir Starmer, after he failed to make any manifesto promises about ending Britain’s longest-running scandal.
The Mirror has learned that early versions of Labour ’s sales pitch to voters had included a pledge to deliver justice to the victims of Cold War radiation experiments, who have launched a last-ditch legal fight for compensation.
But it was cut ahead of its publication last week, along with a number of other measures, for fear that Tory opponents would weaponise it as a potential spending commitment and a “tax rise”.
It caused huge disappointment among campaigners, who had worked with Labour to produce policy proposals for the document.
They had hoped Starmer would strongly back their fight for the truth over their missing medical records, after revelations about the Nuked Blood Scandal in which blood tests were taken from servicemen during weapons trials, but the results withheld from them ever since.
A frontbench source insisted: “The whole manifesto tells a story, rather than running through promises like a shopping list. The nuclear veterans have our backing and we’ll have their backs, if we win.”
The party manifesto did promise to enact a Hillsborough Law, making it a crime for public officials to lie, and creating a public advocate so victims can take legal action against the state. Nuclear veterans are part of that campaign, but despite urgings from party staff they were not specifically mentioned in the pledge.
Operation Grapple veteran John Morris, of Rochdale, met Starmer in 2022, and told him how his son Steven died in his cot just a few years after the weapons trials. John, 85, later developed a radiogenic blood condition.
* You can support the nuclear veterans’ crowdfunder HERE
“I never gave up then, and I don’t intend to give up now,” he said. “If you think of the ammunition we’ve got, much of it from the Mirror investigation of the past couple of years, we’re in a better position than we’ve ever been.
“Starmer looked us in the eye and said ‘your campaign is our campaign’. Angela Rayner told me, on video, that she would deliver full accountability. We don’t have much time left, but I hope we’re at the top of their to-do list.”
A Labour Party spokesman said: “Britain’s nuclear test veterans are national heroes and it’s appalling the way they have been treated.
“Keir Starmer was the first party leader ever to meet NTVs and Labour is fully behind their campaign for recognition, that’s why we wholeheartedly supported their campaign to receive the long overdue recognition and medals they deserve. If elected, we will continue to listen and work with them to deal with their concerns.”
Starmer met John and other campaigners during their fight for a medal and told them Labour’s 2019 pledge of £50,000-a-head compensation was his “starting point”. It had formed part of Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto, which Starmer and others on his frontbench had approved.
Last year, he added: “The country owes a huge debt of honour to these veterans. The PM must act to deliver the appreciation, respect and justice they deserve, and Labour will continue to support their campaign every step of the way.”
His deputy Rayner, and members of the current shadow cabinet, have also met and backed the veterans. After the Nuked Blood Scandal was revealed, Lord Tom Watson forced discussions in the House of Lords, and Manchester mayor Andy Burnham called it “a criminal cover-up on an industrial scale”.
Alan Owen, who founded campaign group LABRATS after his entire family was affected by radiation from his father’s service at the tests, said: “Keir was the first party leader to meet us, and said he would help. If he doesn’t get elected he can’t do that. If he takes office, we expect him to keep his word.”
Lawyers acting for the veterans have demanded the Ministry of Defence stop stalling after they asked for extra time to respond to legal papers served on them two months ago.
