Britain has long suffered from a failure to pay proper attention to Ireland. So the news that Ireland is to bring an inter-state case against the UK under the European human rights convention may have caught some on the hop. There can be no excuse for that. This state-against-state clash, only the second that the UK has faced from Ireland, has been coming for at least a year and a half. What is more, Ireland is in the right and the UK in the wrong.
Boris Johnson’s government launched the original Northern Ireland Troubles (legacy and reconciliation) bill in 2022. After some changes, it eventually became law in September this year. Its aim, in Mr Johnson’s overstated words, was “to draw a line under the Troubles”. The new act has not drawn any such line. Instead, it has been opposed every step of the way by almost everyone except the Conservative party and some UK veterans’ organisations. Most important of all, it is opposed by all the main Northern Ireland political parties, from Sinn Féin to the Democratic Unionists.
