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. Last year a former Paratrooper was found not guilty of murder and attempted murder that day.

The Conservative Party, whose former leader David Cameron issued a public apology 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".

Eastwood welcomed the apology from the Conservative Party but said Badenoch must now apologise in person to the survivors and families of victims of Bloody Sunday.

"She is the one who pushed out this video, her face is in it, it's her video, she needs to apologise and understand the hurt that she has caused to people can't just be wished away," the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MP told BBC News NI.

"It just tells you that the Tory party have no idea or no thought or care for victims here in Northern Ireland."

The video was published on several Conservative Party social platforms and on Badenoch's X account before it was removed on Friday.

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.

Chair of the Bloody Sunday Trust, Tony Doherty, whose father Patrick was among those killed said he did not accept the apology.

He said he was "astounded" the footage had been used in the first place.

"You can remove the video but you cannot delete the history of the British Army in this part of the north.

"If you make the insult personally, you have to undo it personally."

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

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."