Editorial: The legacy act is deeply imperfect but better than many of the alternatives

​The DUP leader Gavin Robinson combined two important points yesterday in his reaction to the Legacy Act, which is now taking effect.​

The East Belfast MP described the legislation as a corruption of justice, but said many of its critics were hypocrites. At last, a major unionist politician has broken away from the rhetoric that all the main parties agree against the government on legacy.

They seemed not to see the subtext to such criticism, which is that the UK Conservative and Unionist government is isolated in the face of combined opposition from Dublin, Washington, opposition parties in Westminster, and all Stormont parties including DUP and Sinn Fein.

Long ago the DUP should have made clear that there was no agreement with SF against London given republicans’ double standards (ruthlessly pursuing the UK security forces through the courts and various disgracefully lopsided probes, often with dubious findings, while themselves lying shamelessly about the history of the IRA).

The DUP should have distanced itself utterly from critics such as Baroness O'Loan, and some of her claims about the extent of collusion, but instead they cited her on legacy in some Westminster debates.

Mr Robinson is right about the corruption of justice: the amnesty element of this legislation has been agreed in a panic to protect soldiers from prosecution while not antagonising the IRA. He is further right about past one-sided corruptions of justice such as On The Run letters to appease republican terrorists. But this new UK approach is incomparably better than the scandalous, anti-state status quo.

In fact, London should long ago have ordered an overarching inquiry into the legacy imbalance, to shine a light on the various forces that have been pushing it along. But it didn't do that, and unionists didn't even ask for it to do such things, so we are where we are.