1 month ago
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The video had been posted on Badenoch's X account but has since been removed
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has been criticised for posting a social media video featuring footage of soldiers on Bloody Sunday.
The video, opposing reforms to the Legacy Act, was shared on Tuesday and shows soldiers entering the Bogside area of Londonderry on 30 January 1972.
Thirteen people were shot dead when the Army opened fire on civil rights demonstrators and last year a former Paratrooper known as Soldier F was found not guilty of murder and attempted murder that day.
BBC News NI has contacted the Conservative Party for a response.
Foyle MP Colum Eastwood said use of the footage was "disgusting and disgraceful".
"I am shocked, frankly, that Kemi Badenoch has posted a video trumpeting the service of British soldiers in Northern Ireland using footage from Bloody Sunday," the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MP said.
"It is disgusting, disgraceful and it is an insult to the innocent civil rights protesters who were murdered in Derry in January 1972."
The video was published on several Conservative Party social platforms and on Badenoch's X account before it was removed on Friday.
Writing on X, Eastwood said the Conservative leader "should apologise directly to the Bloody Sunday families and acknowledge that the politics of prioritising the interests of soldiers over the needs of victims is wrong".
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Thirteen people were killed and 15 wounded on Bloody Sunday
In addition to those who were killed, at least 15 others were injured on Bloody Sunday.
In 2010 the Saville Inquiry into the shootings found that none of the casualties were posing a threat or doing anything that would justify their shooting.
In October 2025, a former paratrooper known as Soldier F was found not guilty of the murder of William McKinney, 26, and James Wray, 22, and the attempted murder of five others on Bloody Sunday.
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Foyle MP Colum Eastwood said the use of the footage was an insult to those killed
In the video posted earlier this week, Badenoch said the government's planned reforms of the Legacy Act, to address Troubles legacy cases, would see veterans who served in Northern Ireland "dragged back into court" and "put elderly veterans through fresh legal battles at the end of their lives".
"This is not justice," she said, and Britain "should stand behind our veterans, not put them on trial decades later".
Eastwood said the Conservatives' promotional video was "entirely about elevating the interests of British soldiers over the needs of victims and survivors".
"My thoughts are with the families of the murdered and injured on Bloody Sunday," he said.
"They have been forced to endure decades of pain and struggle but have maintained immense dignity throughout.
"We're a long way away from former Prime Minister David Cameron's powerful apology for the actions of soldiers on that day."
