Sean Brown: On legacy, the old game of delay and distraction remains the same - The Irish News view

Before it came to power, Labour pledged to right the manifest wrongs of the wretched legacy act launched by the charlatan Boris Johnson in that miserable spell when he was prime minister.

As shadow secretary of state, Hilary Benn told this newspaper last May that Labour would “repeal and replace” the controversial Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.

Now in government, Labour has signalled it is indeed preparing to do just that.

Speaking in the House of Commons just a month ago, Mr Benn said he would bring forward an order to remedy the human rights deficiencies in the Act. This includes scrapping the immunity from prosecution offered to perpetrators under the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery structures and enabling Troubles-related civil cases to proceed.

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The secretary of state said he will also bring forward legislation to restore inquests, including those halted by the legacy act.

However, we have yet to see what these changes will really look like, let alone how they will work in practice.

Until then, it remains wise to be cautious about the British government’s true commitment to mechanisms which might bring into the open the truth about the past, including what it knew and how it acted.

This is something the family of Sean Brown know only too well. Their dignified and determined quest for the truth about his murder in 1997 has received a further setback.

The government is appealing a High Court order that there should be a public inquiry into Mr Brown’s killing by loyalists.

The state is still putting its own interests ahead of the family of an entirely blameless man murdered more than a quarter of a century ago in a case long linked to collusion

At every stage, the Brown family’s efforts to uncover the circumstances of his killing have been thwarted by egregious foot-dragging and obfuscation by the security forces and the state.

The NIO’s appeal was lodged on New Year’s Eve, which the family suspect was timed to “bury bad news”.

“It would appear that the secretary of state has decided that our mother will now enter her 88th year still denied the truth of how, why and by whom her husband was abducted, beaten and murdered,” the family said.

The NIO says matters of “constitutional significance” are at stake. The Brown family and others would be justified in reading that as the state still putting its own interests ahead of the family of an entirely blameless man murdered more than a quarter of a century ago in a case long linked to collusion.

This isn’t the fresh start on legacy that Labour promised. Britain may have got a new governing party, but when it comes to shedding light on the Troubles, the old game of delay and distraction remains the same.

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