Veterans minister Johnny Mercer sacked by Boris Johnson
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer has been sacked by Boris Johnson, after earlier reports that he was preparing to resign over court cases involving ex-British soldiers in the Troubles.
It was reported earlier today that Mercer had clashed with defence secretary Ben Wallace and Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis over the government not halting investigations into soldiers that were involved in the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
It was widely reported that he would hand in his resignation letter tonight.
Multiple media outlets are now reporting that Mercer was then asked to resign by the Prime Minister, but refused.
Johnson then sacked Mercer via text message, according to the Telegraph.
Mercer took to Twitter to release his penned resignation letter, while also writing: “I’m sorry to have been relieved of my responsibilities in government tonight.”
Mercer, who founded the Office for Veterans Affairs, said the government had not done enough to support military veterans.
“Perhaps nothing embodies this more than what we are asking our veterans in their seventies and eighties to relive, through endless reinvestigations and inquests, into events often more than fifty years ago in Northern Ireland,” he wrote.
“Almost all these events were investigated at the time, and without the emergence of new evidence and simply a changing of the political tide, we have abandoned our people in a way I simply cannot reconcile.”
A Downing Street spokesperson said: “This evening the Prime Minister has accepted the resignation of Johnny Mercer as minister for defence, people and veterans. He thanks Johnny Mercer for his service as a Government Minister since 2019.”