Who Is the Violence For?

“murdering hypocrite”¹ 

Bernadette Devlin

The British state doesn’t just protect its violence. It mythologises it. The soldier is sanctified, the protestor vilified. And when the narrative wobbles. When a window is broken at a weapons factory, or a civilian corpse appears in a classified file, the state moves quickly to restore control. This past month, that control has taken two forms: a coordinated press-and-military campaign to end investigations into war crimes committed by British forces in Northern Ireland, and a vote in Parliament to proscribe Palestine Action, the group responsible for some of the most high-profile anti-arms protests in recent years.

One demands impunity. The other criminalises dissent. But both tell the same story: that only certain kinds of violence are allowed to exist in public, and only if they serve the interests of the state.

I. The Silence Over Ulster

The Daily Mail has been leading the latest backlash against historical investigations into the actions of Special Forces during the Troubles. The current focus is on killings by the SAS in South Armagh and West Belfast — operations long shielded from scrutiny. The campaign insists that veterans are being “hounded” by politically motivated lawyers. That these soldiers, many now pensioners, should be left alone.

But this isn’t about personal vendettas. These are legal cases involving the deaths of unarmed civilians (many of them children or teenagers) shot without warning, denied due process, and whose families have waited decades for justice. Some of the dead were alleged IRA members; others were not. All were killed in operations shielded by secrecy and political protection. The idea that investigating these deaths is itself an injustice only makes sense inside the fortress logic of empire, where state violence is always clean, justified, and best forgotten.

II. The Forever Crimes

This isn’t isolated. These are not the only war crimes the British state is trying to bury. In May, I wrote about the unfolding revelations from the Afghanistan inquiry:

The BBC’s Panorama exposed systematic execution operations by SAS units. Detainees were shot while handcuffed. Children were killed. Bodies were staged with planted weapons. These weren’t rogue incidents. They were standard operating procedure. It wasn’t just brutality. It was sport. A culture of “kill tallies” and “confirmed kills” circulated like video game leaderboards. One former soldier, speaking to the inquiry anonymously, described his unit as “psychotic murderers.” Others said they were under informal orders not to capture suspects if they had been released before. Just kill them. On entry, shoot everyone sleeping.

This is not counter-insurgency. It is industrialised murder.

It wasn’t just Britain. Australia’s Brereton Report uncovered similar atrocities. American Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher posed with corpses and was only convicted of taking a photo. Trump pardoned him. Across the Anglosphere, elite troops operated with de facto immunity. What links the SAS, SEALs, and Australian special forces is not discipline. It’s impunity. Each acted as if the rule of law evaporated the moment the rotor blades turned.

The same imperial logic that killed in Kabul protected the killers in Ulster. It was the same ideology. Only the theatre changed.

III. Palestine Action and the Weaponisation of Terror Law

While the state buries its atrocities abroad, it criminalises resistance at home. The proscription of Palestine Action under terrorism law marks a chilling expansion of state power. Palestine Action is guilty only of disruption. Its protests (occupying Elbit Systems sites, blocking roads, spraying slogans on walls and planes) have been annoying, effective, and entirely non-lethal. Yet Labour bundled them into a single vote with actual fascist and terrorist organisations and banned them.

To wear their logo, donate to their legal fund, or even share support online may now be grounds for investigation. No nuance. No appeal. One vote. All or nothing.

Labour didn’t just go along with it. It enabled it. Yvette Cooper signed off. Starmer offered no defence of protest rights. The supposed centre-left folded once again into authoritarian consensus, because protest that works cannot be tolerated. Protest that challenges the arms industry is terrorism. Protest that disrupts profit is extremism. The lesson is brutal and clear.

IV. The Soldier Is a Myth

The public image of the British soldier remains unshakable: decent, restrained, apolitical. It is a lie sustained by media saturation, military PR, and decades of myth-making. Bravo Two Zero. SAS: Who Dares Wins. Hollywood adaptations. Royal patronage.

Since 9/11 and the forever wars, the soldier has been recast as moral hero and frontline humanitarian (half warrior, half trauma victim) deployed not just to fight but to feel on behalf of the nation. At home, the monarchy launders blood with ceremony: medals, wreaths, and staged solemnity that depoliticise war and canonise the dead.

But the real story, whether in Ballymurphy or Helmand, is of a professionalised kill culture shielded by bureaucracy. Files go missing. Inquests are delayed. Political pressure mounts against the lawyers, not the killers.

The story always returns to trauma, but never the trauma of the victims. Always the soldier’s struggle. Never the child whose father was shot in his bed, or the mother who watched her son dragged out and executed.

V. Labour: Custodian of Empire

Labour’s role in this is not passive. It is active management of the imperial legacy. On Northern Ireland, it mumbles about ‘moving on’. On Afghanistan, it stays silent. On Palestine, it votes to criminalise solidarity. This isn’t strategy. It’s submission.

What unites Labour’s approach is a refusal to disrupt British self-image. To challenge the military is to appear unpatriotic. To support Palestine Action is to risk association with radicalism. So Labour governs not as a break from the Tories but as a continuation with softer rhetoric.

This is why the left was purged. This is why protest is now framed as criminality. This is why truth is treason.

Conclusion: Legitimate Brutality

The question is not who commits violence. The question is: who is allowed to? The state’s answer is clear. You can kill, if it serves power. You can protest, so long as it’s symbolic, permitted, ineffective. Cross that line and the full machinery of repression turns against you.

Palestine Action broke windows, not bodies. But they broke the spell.
The SAS left bodies and are protected still.
This is legitimacy in action. This is the logic of empire.

We were told this was about hearts and minds.
But what we gave them were bullets and knives.

Footnotes

1. Following Bloody Sunday, Bernadette Devlin, MP for Mid Ulster, was denied her right to speak in Parliament despite being an eyewitness. In protest, she slapped Home Secretary Reginald Maudling after he claimed British soldiers had fired in self-defence, calling him a “murdering hypocrite.” She was suspended from the House of Commons. ↩︎