CONSERVATIVE Party leader Kemi Badenoch has apologised after posting a video in support of British soldiers that included footage of Bloody Sunday.
The video, which criticised the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, was shared on Ms Badenoch’s social media channels on Tuesday before being removed on Friday.
The SDLP’s Colum Eastwood, MP for Foyle, branded the video ‘disgusting’, saying it shows Ms Badenoch ‘places the interests of former soldiers above the needs of victims and their families’.
In the video, Ms Badenoch said the Labour Government’s Bill threatened to ‘drag’ elderly British veterans into ‘legal battles at the end of their lives’.
The video included footage of British soldiers entering the Bogside in Derry during Bloody Sunday on January 30, 1972.
Following a civil rights march in the city that day, British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians, 13 of whom died on the day while another man died from his injuries a few months later.
Mr Eastwood condemned the video, saying: “It’s disgusting, deeply offensive and an insult to the innocent civil rights protestors who soldiers killed that day.”
He added: “This week we saw the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch put up a video in support of British soldiers and what they did in Northern Ireland.
“That’s one thing but she used footage from Bloody Sunday, from the soldiers going into the Bogside, who went on to shoot down and murder 14 innocent civil rights marchers.
“That’s what the Tory Party think of people here, of victims here.”
Video released in error
The Tory Party subsequently removed the video and apologised for the use of Bloody Sunday footage, saying it ‘should not have been used and will not be used again’.
Mr Eastwood acknowledged the apology from the party but said Ms Badenoch needed to take responsibility for the post herself.
According to The Guardian, the Tory leader said on Saturday that she had apologised when quizzed about the clip.
“I have apologised. I did not sign off the video,” said Ms Badenoch, reports the paper.
“It was about a vote in parliament where Labour are putting in legislation that is hounding the very elderly veterans for things that happened decades ago, often under the instruction of political leaders who are no longer around.”
She added that the video ‘was done by very young people who did not recognise the footage as being from Bloody Sunday’ and apologised that it ‘went out in error’.
Labour’s Northern Ireland Troubles Bill aims to repeal and replace the previous Conservative Government’s Legacy Act, which sought to do away with inquests into Troubles-era deaths.
It also offered to provide immunity from prosecution for those who cooperated with a commission set up under the Act to investigate deaths and injuries related to the Troubles.
Despite the damning Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday and an apology from then British Prime Minister David Cameron, no soldiers have ever been convicted over the Bloody Sunday deaths.
In October last year, one former solider was acquitted of two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder.
Everything from irishpost.com and the print edition is available on the Irish Post App — plus more! Download it for Android or Apple IOS devices today.