The Shadow Defence Minister has called on the public to sign a petition to stop Northern Ireland veterans being subjected to “an endless cycle of investigations”.
Speaking on GB News, Mark Francois said: “In a nutshell, Labour are trying to change the law because they say the Legacy Act is incompatible with certain parts of the sacred Human Rights Act.
“So this government of human rights lawyers is trying to change the law, which would have two effects.
“One, it would reopen our Northern Ireland veterans to this endless cycle of investigation and re-investigation, whilst at the same time making it easier for Gerry Adams to sue the British taxpayer.
“There are politicians like me who are very annoyed about this, but the veterans who fought in Northern Ireland and other veterans are extremely annoyed, so they put together a petition.
“It is up to nearly 40,000 signatures in just over four days, which is pretty good going. If it gets to 100,000 we have to debate it in Parliament. We're trying to show the Labour government the strength of feeling against doing this.
“In a number of the court cases, the government could have appealed to higher courts. But because they're a government of human rights lawyers from the PM downwards, they haven't done that.
“They regard paying homage to the Human Rights Act as more important than defending the soldiers who upheld the rule of law in Northern Ireland. We think that is abhorrent.
“All soldiers had to operate under the rule of law. They had to comply with, in most cases, with something that was called the yellow card, which laid down when they could and could not open fire.
“Of course, every soldier would believe that the law should be upheld; they were there to uphold law and order in Northern Ireland. But nearly all of these cases were investigated at the time, in some cases, 50 years ago.
“Sinn Fein and their allies, who want to rewrite history, are often constantly trying to revive these cases to pursue those veterans for their own ends.
“Dennis Hutchings was arrested, who subsequently died in the middle of a trial. The PSNI sent 11 officers to arrest a man in his mid 70s who was dying of cancer. I don't know what they thought he was going to do.
“So the bottom line is this is two tier justice. It's one justice for our Northern Ireland veterans. It's a completely different form of justice from Gerry Adams and some of his friends who were given so called letters of comfort by Tony Blair.”
Discussing the UK-EU summit next week, Francois said: “To [align with the EU] would be utterly contrary to the principles of the 2016 referendum, which said that we should take back control of our laws. The risk is not just about fish, although that is definitely one.
“They're probably going to go for what's called dynamic alignment on veterinary measures and food standards. It sounds a fancy term, but what it means is, if the EU change their rules, we automatically comply with them. They dynamically move, and we follow, even if Parliament doesn't want to. So we become a passive rule taker.
“That is totally against the spirit of the referendum, that is, in effect, a surrender of our sovereignty. Therefore, if we came into government, and they're mad enough to do it, and we still hope they won't, we would then feel obliged to overturn it.
“This summit on Monday, we're calling the surrender Summit, because they're going to surrender some of our powers to the European Union.”