There are cross-party calls for Keir Starmer to bring an end to the scandal of missing medical records, following a harrowing new BBC film
Politicians have demanded an end to the Nuked Blood Scandal after viewing a BBC documentary into Britain’s longest cover-up.
The Prime Minister has been warned he faces a potential £5billion bill to settle legal claims of thousands of ‘lab rat’ veterans who had blood tests taken during Cold War weapons trials, and the results hidden from them.
The Mirror has uncovered 4,000 pages of discussions and orders for medical monitoring of troops of all three armed forces over more than a decade, as well as a “special directive” to “dispose” of some of them.
Yet the Ministry of Defence had always denied such testing ever took place, and serving Whitehall officials even provided sworn testimony to multiple courts claiming that it had not been necessary.
The one-off special, called Britain’s Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story, was aired in Parliament yesterday at a special screening organised by shadow minister Andrew Bowie.
The Tory MP said afterwards: “What struck me is that, as a country, we’re very proud of how we treat our veterans. But when it comes to this we are the worst in the world at recognising what happened to those who took part in nuclear weapons tests.
“Instead we engaged this culture of cover-up and denial, which in itself has caused the veterans further harm that we can so see so clearly in this film.”
Independent MP Ian Byrne, who was part of the campaign to end the cover-up over the Hillsborough football tragedy, said what happened to nuclear veterans was even worse.
He said: “The documentary is revelatory. It had such an impact on me. Because it’s not just the people who were involved who are affected – there are other generations coming through, and will be for many more years. That’s the difference between this scandal and all the others we’ve seen.”
Last week PM Keir Starmer was asked to meet veterans to see for himself their evidence of crimes committed by the state, but delegated responsibility for meetings to others.
Defence Secretary John Healey said the day after the documentary was broadcast that he had launched an internal investigation to find out what had happened to troops’ medical records. It is being led by Veterans Minister Al Carns, who confirmed he has seen the film.
But there is a race against time to produce answers before veterans’ lawyers issue a High Court claim in the New Year, which would end the chance for veterans and ministers to have frank discussions.
Consideration is being given to airing the documentary in Commonwealth nations whose troops were also involved in the weapons trials, including Australia and New Zealand.
* Britain’s Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story is available on iPlayer
