The picture is damning. Keir Starmer helped break the guarantee that makes lawful military service possible. That guarantee is simple and absolute: if you obey lawful orders, act within the rules given at the time, and serve the state in good faith, the state will stand by you when the mission ends. Without it, discipline collapses, restraint corrodes, and trust dies. Iraq is where that guarantee was first torn up. Northern Ireland is where the damage is now being repeated. In 2007, Starmer chose to involve himself in a legal case that reshaped how British soldiers could be pursued after Iraq. Working voluntarily and without payment alongside Richard Hermer, now his Attorney General, and Phil Shiner, later struck off and convicted for fraud, he advanced a claim that extended human rights law deep into active war zones. That decision widened the law, lowered the bar for investigation, and turned clearance into a temporary reprieve rather than an end point. The effects were immediate and brutal. Soldiers who had been investigated and cleared were dragged back years later. Lives were suspended in legal limbo. Families lived under permanent threat. The state had changed the rules after the fact and pretended nothing fundamental had shifted. The case of Sergeant Richie Catterall exposes the truth with pitiless clarity. Cleared twice. Reopened a third time on allegations later shown to rely on false material. Thirteen years of pursuit. Severe mental illness. Near suicide. Vindication came only after his life had been dismantled. The submissions that reignited that ordeal were personally advanced by Starmer and Hermer. From there, the machinery expanded. The Iraq Historic Allegations Team ballooned into existence, fed largely by claims generated by Shiner's firm. Thousands of allegations. Tens of millions of pounds spent. No convictions. What it produced reliably was fear and exhaustion for soldiers who had acted under lawful orders, while lawyers prospered and the process rolled on. This history matters because it explains the present. The renewed pursuit of Northern Ireland veterans follows the same legal logic, now exercised with the full authority of government. The gutting of the Legacy Act, the refusal to pursue appeals, the exposure of ageing soldiers to endless process while terrorists walk free. This is the Iraq template reapplied. Starmer's defenders retreat into technicalities. They speak of interventions, points of law, and neutral assistance to courts. That defence fails on contact with reality. Law does not operate in a vacuum. Extending litigation into war zones was a political act with foreseeable consequences. Starmer is too experienced to plead ignorance. The detail meant to excuse him only deepens the charge. He acted pro bono. He was not compelled. He volunteered. He gave his time freely to a cause rooted in suspicion of state authority and indifference to battlefield reality. That speaks to belief, not detachment. The continuity is reinforced by personnel. Richard Hermer, Starmer's ally in the Iraq case, now sits at the heart of government as Attorney General. What was once advocacy has become policy. The legal culture that treats soldiers as permanent suspects is now embedded at the top of the state. This is the core failure. By making lawful service conditional and temporary, the government has voided the moral contract of soldiering. Serve today. Be judged tomorrow by different rules. Face process decades later. That is how hesitation replaces judgement, lawyers replace commanders, and recruitment drains away without announcement. And while trust collapses at home and the bond between the state and its soldiers breaks down, where is our Prime Minister? In China, managing the fallout from the Chagos debacle and the row over a Chinese super-embassy. Leadership begins with loyalty. If he cannot stand by Britain's veterans, he should not stand at the head of government. Keir Starmer and Lord Hermer