Patrick Murphy: Your government is a party to terrorism, Mr Benn. Instead of appealing the Sean Brown ruling, just do the decent thing and resign

Dear Hilary Benn

Please don’t take this personally, but it is time for you to do the decent thing and resign. That’s right, resign – pack your bags and go.

The reason for this suggestion is that you represent the British government here and a growing body of evidence indicates that agents of that same government murdered Sean Brown in Bellaghy in 1997.

On the basis of that evidence, it is reasonable to assume that your government had advance knowledge of the murder and that since then, it has protected the murderers from the law.

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Patrick Murphy: Your government is a party to terrorism, Mr Benn. Instead of appealing the Sean Brown ruling, just do the decent thing and resign

The High Court has ruled that a public inquiry must be carried out into the murder as there was no other way to properly investigate Mr Brown’s death.

You are now challenging that ruling. This suggests that you wish to prevent a full and proper investigation into this crime.

Your appeal will be heard next week and whatever its outcome, your government will be seen as attempting to cover up state murder.

A court hearing last February heard that documentation shown to Mr Brown’s inquest indicated that “in excess of 25 individuals were linked through intelligence to the murder”. Several were described as “agents of the state”.

You are the representative of that state in this country. You will therefore understand that you cannot expect the trust or support of all right-thinking people here. Not for the first time, your government is a party to terrorism.

In a Court of Appeal ruling earlier this year, Lady Chief Justice Siobhan Keegan wrote that the current Legacy Act grants the UK government, specifically the Northern Ireland secretary (that’s you), far too much veto power over the disclosure of information held by the state.

Your office’s excuse for challenging a public inquiry is that the High Court ruling raises “matters of constitutional significance”. Would you like to tell us what these matters are?

Your office has also expressed “enormous sympathy for Mrs Brown and her family”. You will understand why many people here will regard these as meaningless words.

In this part of the world we are well used to the cover-up of murder and a diet of meaningless words.

The IRA, for example, murdered Jean McConville in 1972 and her body was only discovered in 2003, when a storm washed away part of the beach where she was secretly buried.

Gerry Adams recently said the murder was “very regrettable”. Had he used the verb “regretted”, it would have implied that someone regretted it, but by using the adjective “regrettable”, it divorced anyone from responsibility. How is your government’s attitude any different?

Your reaction to the state’s role in Mr Brown’s murder raises five questions, which you probably recognise: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? How do we get rid of you?

In this part of the world we are well used to the cover-up of murder and a diet of meaningless words

Yes, they are the five questions which your late father, Tony Benn, used in countless speeches and lectures to challenge injustice.

Described as “a proud radical, an anti-colonialist, a socialist without apology and an inspiration for generations of activists”, his questions have a remarkable resonance for the position in which you now find yourself.

The answers to those questions in your case are that the Lady Chief Justice says you have too much power, which you get from England, but not from here. You use that power to attempt to cover up state crimes. You are accountable to no-one over whom you have jurisdiction here.

So how do we get rid of you? We can’t. We can only ask you to resign.

In opposition, your party promised to undo Boris Johnson’s Legacy Act which shut down all historical inquests in May last year. You have now been here for six months and you have done little to fulfil that promise. A new British government has meant the same old policy of cover-up.

So it is time for you to go. Oh, and when you do go, tell Keir Starmer not to send a replacement. You see, one Secretary of State is no different from another when it comes to covering up the state murder of an innocent man.

Please understand that this criticism is nothing personal. It is an issue of justice and morality. If you are not sure about that, ask yourself the five questions which your father often posed.

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