The government says it wants to dodge certain bits of the European Convention On Human Rights because of an “Industry of false and vexatious claims” against British soldiers who served in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wasn’t the war being fought to ensure the human rights of these people?
Er… Wasn’t it WMDs? Or 9/11? I forget.
So theses false claims, how many did you say there were?
An industry of em!
So, one thousand? One million?
It’s probably got a one in it.
Did troops abuse Iraqis etc?
Well, there have been the odd several hundred cases…
And how many were “vexatious” claims?
Look, I don’t have the figure to hand…
Only the MOD has paid out on almost 330 cases, hasn’t it?
Well, there’s always the occasional bad apple.
So is it easy to bring a claim against UK troops?
Fuck no! The standard of evidence is much greater than in every day life.
I see. So, most of the cases are genuine or at least meet a higher standard of evidence than you or I would have to meet if we’d been-
Why don’t you support our troops?
What? Listen, have there been lots of false claims or not?
I don’t like your tone!
The Law Society seems to think that that actually the MOD may have been intimidating lawyers.
See? Vexatious claims from bloody lefty trade unionists!
Like Rev Nicholas Mercer, who was a lieutenant colonel and senior legal military adviser to the 1st Armoured Division during the Iraq war who says you have been dripping an “orchestrated narrative” in the press?
Like we said, bad apples.
And Liberty say the same.
Bunch of hippies.
In fact from David Cameron last year to Theresa May and various other government figures the government has been banging on about this, trying to put the idea that there are or could be lots of false, ambulance chaser type claims into the public narrative, without a shred of evidence. Haven’t they?
I think it’s right to defend our troops against vexatious claims.
And what about the real claims?
Define real!
Well, in 326 cases the MOD has paid out 20 million, despite only doing so when the evidence is so overwhelming that they could hardly do otherwise. They’re real claims, aren’t they?
Well…
And those victims of military abuse wouldn’t have got justice had the derogations of the ECHR you propose been in place?
Well, actually those were mostly torture claims, which we can’t actually derogate from because of that pesky UN and their Human Rights obsession.
So, there haven’t been enough false claims to actually put a number to, if any; it’s nigh on impossible to bring any claim in the first place; the government and MOD are accused of bullying solicitors to stop them bringing real cases and those cases where it has been proven without a shadow of a doubt that abuse took place wouldn’t be effected anyway. That sound about right?
Well, maybe. I think it’s right to fight against this industry of vexatious claims against our troops!
That you haven’t shown exists.
There’s an industry of em!
How many would constitute an industry?
Well, I haven’t got the exact figure to hand….
(Continues Ad Nauseum)
