nuclear-news

 Labour ministers under pressure as viral video shows broken promises to nuclear veterans.

A video showing Labour ministers promising compensation to nuclear veterans has gone viral, putting the government under pressure to keep its word.

Susie Boniface Reporter, Mirror UK, 30 May 2025

Pressure is growing on the Labour government to keep its years of promises to nuclear veterans, after a social media video went viral.

It includes clips of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Defence Secretary John Healey and Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard all insisting that when in power they would offer full recognition to Britain’s most mistreated heroes.

More than a million people have now seen the video, compiled by social justice campaigner Peter Stefanovic. He is calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to sit down with the families affected by involvement with Cold War nuclear weapons tests.

In Opposition and the shadow cabinet, the three gave unscripted and unasked-for offers of compensation, saying “there was no good reason” not to and it was “really dumb” of the Tories not to have done it already. Mr Starmer himself told them: “The country owes you a huge debt of honour. Your campaign is our campaign.” Yet after almost a year in power, nothing has changed.

Mr Stefanovic said: “Despite expressing his “gratitude” to the veterans in opposition, after becoming PM, Keir Starmer has made no public comment on the nuclear blood test programme, and 10 months since Labour came to power, there is no compensation scheme, no recognition, beyond a commemorative medal which was authorised by the Tories.

“A ‘thorough’ review of the archives promised to Parliament by Mr Healey has been given no budget with which to find answers. Our nuclear test veterans – national heroes to whom this country owes a huge debt of honour and gratitude, most of whom are now in their eighties and with chronic ill health – are calling on the PM to meet with them and honour the commitment which his party to them in opposition… it’s the very least the veterans deserve.”

The pledges were all made before evidence emerged in November 2022 of the Nuked Blood Scandal, a secret biological monitoring programme on troops involving blood tests, urinalysis and chest x-rays to determine whether radiation had entered their bodies. The MoD had long denied such a programme existed, but a three-year investigation by the Mirror has uncovered thousands of pages of evidence hidden on a secret database at the Atomic Weapons Establishment.

Discovery of the cover-up has led to a civil lawsuit, a police complaint, and a decision to declassify the entire historic archive. After it featured in a BBC documentary, a review was launched but six months on ministers have refused to reveal any findings, and admitted it has no deadline.

The video shows Ms Rayner addressing a conference of the forgotten Cold War heroes in 2022, telling them: “Myself and my Labour colleagues are calling on the Secretary of State for Defence to…. liaise with the Treasury to set up an appropriate financial compensation programme for veterans and their descendants, as America, France, China, Russia, Fiji and the Isle of Man have done.”………………………………………………. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-ministers-under-pressure-viral-35314341

June 2, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics