The next leader of the UK must prioritise veterans and deliver on demands to end witch hunts from all conflicts
THE next leader of the United Kingdom MUST prioritise our veterans the moment they step through the door of No 10.
Those who serve our country should never be forgotten. But too often, especially as the memory of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq fades, they have been shunted down the policy pecking order.
Previous Governments have, to their credit, taken steps in the right direction. But their activities have often been piecemeal or lacking in an overall direction.
Giving the money from interest rate-rigging fines to armed forces charities is a good example.
A promise of nearly £1bn, but a promise that hasn’t been delivered as fully as it should have been, with Ministers even dipping into the pot to cover shortfalls in their own budgets.
We need a sea change — and that’s why we’ve partnered with Help for Heroes and Combat Stress to demand a Cabinet Minister takes the reins on this vital issue under a Johnson or Hunt Government.
And that Minister mustn’t just be there to turn up for photo ops at far-flung bases. They must drive through a firmer commitment to the Military Covenant and, vitally, work with the Attorney General to end the persecution of veterans from former conflicts.
Everybody who has served has put their life on the line for us — and their families have sacrificed plenty, too.
Time to deliver.
Labour on brink
EVERY time you think they can’t sink any lower, Labour’s leadership finds a way.
This once great party is now run by a rabble of apologists for anti-Semitism, Marxists and bullies.
They think nothing of spending their members’ cash on expensive law firms in an attempt to throttle the free press.
And when it comes to policy, their combination of two-faced doublespeak on Brexit and a cripplingly expensive nationalisation programme would send the UK economy into a nosedive it might never recover from.
Yet still there are decent MPs on those Labour backbenches who think the tide will turn, that even if Corbyn was to enter Downing Street he could somehow be managed. Codswallop.
It’s put up or shut up time for them.
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Rebels’ risk
BOTH Tory candidates to be next PM have promised to deliver Brexit, deal or no deal.
It’s the only hope the party has of remaining relevant.
So when they take office, they have a mandate to deliver their promises in the leadership contest. Including those on the European Union.
That means those Tory MPs who are still dead-set on crippling the Government’s Exit strategy by stopping a clean break are not just turning their noses up at their own members.
They’re risking the future of the party.