Kemi Badenoch use of Bloody Sunday footage ‘disgusting’, says MP

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Kemi Badenoch use of Bloody Sunday footage 'disgusting', says MP

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has been criticised for posting a social media video opposing reforms to the Legacy Act that featured footage of soldiers on Bloody Sunday.

The video 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.

The Conservative Party, whose former leader David Cameron issued a public apology in 2010 for the soldiers' actions, said the video was removed "as soon as we were made aware of the footage".

"We apologise for the inclusion of this material, which should not have been used and will not be used again," a spokesman told BBC News NI.

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.

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.

The Prime Minister at the time, Cameron, described the killings as "unjustified and unjustifiable".

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.

"It is disgusting, disgraceful and it is an insult to the innocent civil rights protesters" who were killed, Eastwood said.

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".

Chair of the Bloody Sunday Trust, Tony Doherty, whose father Patrick was among those killed said he was "astounded" the footage had been used.

He said it was "grossly insulting to the Bloody Sunday families and to the people of Derry".

PA Media

In addition to those who were killed, at least 15 others were injured on Bloody Sunday.

PA Media

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."

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