Nuclear veterans have been given a payout by Donald Trump, while being refused compensation by their own government
Donald Trump has handed his nuclear veterans a $5billion compensation package – while Keir Starmer ignores his own heroes in the UK.
The deal came in the small print of a financial mega-bill signed into law in the US, and guarantees veterans, uranium miners and civilian “downwinders” $100,000 each. It can also be claimed by their children, and a further $3m a year has been set aside for scientific research into their health problems.
Yet British survivors of Cold War bomb testing are routinely denied even a small war pension despite suffering the same legacy of cancers, blood disorders, and birth defects.
Brian Unthank, 87, has had 96 skin cancers, two bouts of bladder cancer, and is now being treated for an “unusual” prostate cancer. While the US accepts they can all be due to service at nuclear weapons trials, the UK does not, so he has been refused a war pension.
Brian, of Erith, Kent, said: “Someone exposed the same way as me, in the same place, and who could have been stood next to me, can be compensated but for some reason we’re still fighting.
“The Ministry of Defence will keep on sweeping this under the carpet while there’s hair on the broom. All I want is for Starmer to stand up, admit they got it wrong, apologise and find a way to sort it. But every promise we’ve ever had has been broken.”
US and UK troops were deployed side-by-side to 31 megaton weapons tests at Christmas Island in the Pacific in 1962, and in Nevada into the 1990s. British veterans who have suffered one of 21 radiogenic cancers have won payouts from the US, but denied the same in the UK.
Mr Trump is expected in the UK for a state visit in September, during which he will meet King Charles, whose father was also at Christmas Island during the testing programme.
Last week, Emmanuel Macron’s visit coincided with the revelation he had authorise payments of £77m to French nuclear veterans.
Alan Owen of campaign group LABRATS said: “The Prime Minister should be embarrassed that other statesmen have responded to this issue with more speed and sympathy than the UK. It’s been a year since he took office, a year since we asked him to meet us to discuss our evidence and a cheap and effective solution. He didn’t even reply. Mr Trump should be told that, in the UK, veterans just don’t matter.”
Compensation for British veterans was suggested by ministers in 2009 to settle a High Court case, but their instructions were never passed on. the 2019 Labour manifesto promised £50,000-a-head payments to survivors, but the pledge was removed before Starmer came to power.
The US has paid out a total of $2bn to victims of its nuclear weapon testing since the 1980s, but the legislation timed out last year. Trump has restarted it, increasing and broadening the payouts to cover more people. UK campaigners have asked ministers to institute a similar scheme.
A MoD spokesman declined to comment.