Reform UK has vowed to give British soldiers greater protection from prosecution, pledging to halt most criminal cases against serving and former troops unless the Defence Secretary gives explicit consent.
The party’s newly appointed Defence spokesman, Angus MacIntyre, said the party would, within 100 days of forming a Government, pardon veterans “convicted for simply carrying out orders, terminate ongoing prosecutions and bar further prosecutions of British soldiers.”
Laying out Reform’s proposals, Mr MacIntyre told The Daily Mail: “We see the utterly disgraceful treatment of our veterans who have found themselves prosecuted merely for doing their jobs.
“Ex-soldiers should not spend their retirement wondering whether the very country they swore to defend will stand by them. We will have their backs.”
However, senior military figures questioned the practicality of Reform’s plans.
Former army intelligence officer Philip Ingram said: “Opposition parties promise lots. I don’t believe there is a legal mechanism to achieve what they’re promising.”
Prominent veterans’ affairs campaigner Paul Young added: “We could not endorse those policies based on those wordings.
“The Defence Secretary is a politician rather than a legal person. We have advocated that a Supreme Court judge should decide whether cases proceed, based on the requirement for new, compelling and extraordinary evidence.
“We have never called for pardons, rather the prevention of repeated attempts to prosecute soldiers without legal justification.
“When someone has committed a crime, they should be subjected to the appropriate processes.”
Alongside introducing protections for veterans, Reform has pledged to slash Britain’s welfare spending to increase defence spending.
Mirroring pledges made by both Labour and the Tories, Mr Farage’s party has also vowed to boost defence spending to three per cent of GDP by 2030 and 3.5 per cent by 2035.
The Reform pledge comes amid growing fears the Labour Government’s proposed Troubles Legacy Bill could leave veterans facing renewed investigations into incidents dating back decades.
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The Bill is intended to replace the controversial 2023 Legacy Act, introduced by the previous Conservative government.
That legislation offered conditional immunity to people responsible for some Troubles-related offences in return for cooperation with the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, which was tasked with investigating the conflict.
Labour’s replacement would establish a new Legacy Commission to investigate Troubles-related killings, alongside a separate information recovery body and a dedicated legacy unit within the Irish police force, An Garda Síochána.
Ministers say the new framework is needed to provide answers to families who lost loved ones during the Troubles and to deliver a system capable of securing greater public confidence.
At a protest against the Bill in September, Gary Noland told GB News: “The Government appears to hate us and they want to hound us until they can get us put in prison.
“My trust in the Government is on the floor at the moment.”
Just one month following the protest, fury erupted once more after it was revealed SAS soldiers who were arrested on suspicion of murdering two teenagers while hunting Islamic State terrorists were forced to serve in Syria despite facing a three-year probe.
The five SAS troops were later accused of using “disproportionate force” after the youngsters were not found to be carrying weapons at the time of their deaths.
A military police investigation, dubbed Operation Tanglement, was launched into the servicemen’s actions.
Shortly after the mission, raids were carried out on undisclosed bases across Syria, Iraq and Britain, with the five soldiers arrested on suspicion of double murder.
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