Britain’s Attorney-General Lord Hermer is facing formal complaints and growing calls to resign after newly surfaced documents allegedly show he helped pursue false murder accusations against British soldiers, accusations an official inquiry later debunked as fabrications by an Iran-backed militia.
The controversy centers on the al-Sweady case, which alleged that British troops tortured and executed Iraqi villagers in 2004. A subsequent inquiry cleared the soldiers and found the accusers were militia members making false claims. But documents reportedly obtained by The Daily Telegraph suggest Hermer was deeply involved in pressing the case forward, even as doubts about the allegations surfaced.
Shadow Attorney General Nick Timothy said he referred Hermer to the Bar Standards Board, calling the revelations evidence of “serious professional misconduct.” Nigel Farage separately reported Hermer to the House of Lords’ standards commissioner, calling him a “deeply unpatriotic man” and a “threat to national security.” Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, the shadow attorney general in the House of Lords, demanded Hermer provide a “full explanation.”
The Daily Telegraph claimed to have reviewed thousands of documents tied to the al-Sweady affair. Among them: a 2008 email attributed to Hermer in which he reportedly described the Iraqi allegations as “a good reminder of why I wanted to be a lawyer.”
Another email, as described by the Telegraph’s published timeline, reportedly showed Hermer discussing the challenge of “getting the balance between making sure that the big story is out there whilst giving us some wriggle room if the killings did not in fact happen.”
Read that again. The man now serving as Britain’s chief legal officer allegedly strategized about maintaining “wriggle room” in case the central allegations against British troops turned out to be false. The inquiry later proved they were exactly that, false.
A spokesman for Lord Hermer pushed back, stating that “the suggestion attorney acted for individuals with the knowledge that their claims were false is categorically untrue.” But the documented language about “wriggle room” sits uneasily alongside that denial. If you already believe the claims are true, you don’t need wriggle room.
Hermer was not the only lawyer involved in the al-Sweady litigation. Phil Shiner, one of the key lawyers in the case, was later struck off from the profession and convicted in criminal court for fraud. That a figure so central to the same legal effort was ultimately found to be a fraud raises obvious questions about the broader enterprise, and about the judgment of those who participated in it alongside him.
The pattern is familiar to anyone who has watched ideologically motivated legal campaigns target military personnel. Lawyers pursue aggressive claims against service members, collect fees, build reputations, and when the claims collapse, the soldiers are left with years of stress and tarnished records while the lawyers move on. In Hermer’s case, he moved all the way to the top of Britain’s legal establishment. Much as accountability has proved elusive for prominent officials on both sides of the Atlantic, the question here is whether Hermer’s past conduct disqualifies him from the office he now holds.
The sharpest condemnation came from Lieutenant Colonel Richard Williams, former commanding officer of Britain’s elite 22 SAS special forces unit. Williams did not mince words:
“What was long suspected is now proven. Attorney General Hermer has been part of a group of ideologically-motivated, government-embedded, Human Rights lawyers that have acted in a vexatious and biased way to persecute British soldiers, not because they broke the law, but to serve some twisted anti-military, anti-British agenda.”
Williams went further, alleging that Hermer and lawyers like him “deliberately misapplied the 1988 UK Human Rights Act to British military operations in ways that not only create a never-ending conveyor belt of Veteran persecutions but also fundamentally undermine Britain’s ability to wage war and thereby defend itself.” He concluded: “For the love of Country, he must step down.”
Former junior defence minister and Army officer Johnny Mercer posed a blunt question:
“Whose side is Lord Hermer actually on? For he has now been exposed as having actively worked with this nation’s enemies to weaken our national security… That he could not care whether he is representing ‘a saint or a member of al-Qaeda or the Mahdi Army’ is extraordinary.”
Nick Timothy, Hermer’s Conservative opposite number, tied the matter directly to Prime Minister Starmer’s judgment. Timothy stated that Hermer “went after British soldiers despite warnings murder allegations were false” and added: “He knew what he was doing: he sought ‘wriggle room’ if the killings did not happen. It says everything that Starmer made him Attorney General.”
That last point deserves emphasis. After winning the 2024 General Election, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, himself a former human rights lawyer and Director of Public Prosecutions, raised Hermer to the House of Lords and installed him as Attorney-General. The appointment now looks like a liability. If the Telegraph’s documents are authentic and accurately described, Starmer elevated a man who helped pursue discredited allegations against his own country’s soldiers to the highest legal office in the land.
The timing compounds the problem. Critics note that the government is presently pursuing legal changes that would, according to opponents, make it easier for British soldiers to face legal action. Hermer’s alleged history of pursuing exactly such cases against troops makes his role in shaping those policies a matter of legitimate concern. Lord Wolfson implied Hermer should recuse himself from certain related cases, though the specific matters were not identified.
The broader pattern, of politically connected lawyers cycling between activist litigation and government power, is not unique to Britain. Legal systems on both sides of the Atlantic have grappled with cases where the machinery of law is used not to pursue justice but to advance ideological agendas, and the people on the receiving end are often those least able to fight back.
Hermer now faces referrals to two separate bodies: the House of Lords Standards Commission and the Bar Standards Board. Whether either investigation produces consequences remains to be seen. The political pressure, however, is already intense and bipartisan in character, spanning Conservatives, Reform UK’s Farage, and veterans’ advocates.
Several questions remain open. What specific documents did the Telegraph review, and will they be released in full? Will Hermer address the “wriggle room” email directly, rather than through a spokesman’s blanket denial? Will Prime Minister Starmer defend the appointment or distance himself? And will Hermer recuse himself from government legal matters touching on military accountability?
The al-Sweady inquiry cleared British soldiers over twenty years after the original allegations. For those troops and their families, that vindication came at enormous personal cost. The lawyers who pressed the false case faced varying degrees of consequence, Phil Shiner lost his career and was convicted of fraud. Others, it seems, landed in government.
The accountability gap is familiar enough. When institutions entrusted with upholding the law face allegations of misconduct, the public has every right to demand transparency, not deflection. And when the person in question holds the office of Attorney-General, the government’s chief legal adviser, the standard should be higher, not lower.
The facts alleged here are straightforward. A lawyer helped pursue murder charges against British soldiers. An inquiry found the charges were built on lies told by enemy combatants. That lawyer’s own emails reportedly reveal he anticipated the claims might be false. And rather than facing professional consequences, he was promoted to the most powerful legal post in the country.
If that isn’t a case for resignation, it’s hard to imagine what would be.
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