Peter Stefanovic, lawyer and CEO of CAMPAIGN FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, has produced a shocking video, supporting the nuclear test veterans’ campaign, LABRATS (Legacy of the Atomic Bomb Recognition for Atomic Test Survivors). So far there has been a staggering 11 million views on social media platform X and hundreds of thousands more on other platforms.

Stefanovic’s film contains footage of senior Labour MP’s seen vocally expressing their support for the nuclear test veterans’ campaign whilst in opposition.

Defence Secretary John Healey MP, then shadow Defence Secretary, is seen telling the nuclear test veterans:

“On behalf of the British Labour Party I’ve said to our veterans your campaign is our campaign…There is no good reason, there is no good moral reason, there is no good military reason for withholding the compensation other countries have had”

Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, goes further, telling the veterans:

“Myself and my Labour colleagues are calling on the Secretary of State for Defence to…liaise with the treasury to set up an appropriate financial compensation program for veterans and their descendants as America, France, Australia, China, Russia Fiji and the Isle of Man have done”

Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard, is seen saying:

“We need to see not only the recognition for our nuclear veterans but also the compensation that they deserve…the Conservative Government’s failure to give them compensation was “really dumb”

Despite expressing his “gratitude” to the veterans in opposition, after becoming Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made no public comment on the nuclear blood test programme and more than a year since Labour came to power, there is still no compensation scheme and a “thorough” review of the archives promised to Parliament by Mr Healey has been given no budget with which to find answers.

On October 1st, Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to meet with veterans of Britain’s Cold War nuclear weapons testing programme “hopefully by the end of the year”.

The Prime Minister, speaking to BBC Breakfast, was presented with a video message from 87-year-old John Morris, who witnessed four hydrogen bomb tests when he was 18.

Mr Morris is one of a group of veterans who say the radiation they were exposed to in the 1950s caused many of them severe health problems – and who have accused the Ministry of Defence (MOD) of a cover-up.

Starmer told the BBC: “I will meet John, I have met the veterans before, but that is no reason not to meet them again.”

More than a month on and no date for the promised meeting has been set. The average age of the veterans, many of whom have since died, is 87, and the veterans have already waited more than a year for a meeting with the PM to discuss the justice and compensation Labour committed to in opposition.

This campaign has a personal angle to it, as my Uncle was one of those sent to Christmas Island, unaware of what the consequences would be.

I spoke to him recently, from his home in the US.

This is what he shared:

“I arrived on Christmas Island in 1956 aged 18, as a part of the RAF task force designated 160 wing airspace.

There was no indication when we took off as to where we were going or why. On arrival we were bused in from the airport, and we lived in surplus World War II tents. We had to find wood to make our furniture and to raise our beds because of the migrating red crabs.

The men were aged between18-22 yrs with many on National Service, no one agreed to what we were about to take part in as no one knew.

On Christmas Island there were 3 or 4 bombs dropped whilst I was there, the largest being just before I left in November 1957.

We sat down with our backs to the testing site with our eyes covered with our hands, dressed in light shirts and shorts, the rest of our bodies were exposed. It was worse for the Royal Engineers as they were closer.

First there was the flash

Then came the hot wind

And finally, the bang

I remember being able to see though my hands as though they were transparent.

Within a few years some of the men started dying (in the early 60’s).

I am 87 years old, I have had digestive problems, skin cancer and the lung problems I now have, my doctors have said, are a result of being exposed to radiation.

For those of us present at the nuclear testing, the effects have possibly been passed on to the third generation, but that is difficult to prove.

We want a full inventory of the medical issues that those on Christmas Island and other nuclear testing sights have endured.

But after 70 years, time is running out.

I am aware that documents have been found with proof of blood tests and their results. I can’t remember.

We didn’t even have radiation badges that can be worn on your uniform to detect radiation.

British Nuclear Test Veterans Organisation closed and Labrats took its place.

Labrats had proof we were there as an experiment even though it was denied for years.

We were definitely Guinea Pigs.

The Ministry of Defence doesn’t seem to answer to anyone. Even veterans protesting in London were arrested, and these were old men.

I received a medal a few years ago but this didn’t change anything, I suppose that was to shut us up and to make us go away.”

More than 40,000 men from Britain and the Commonwealth took part in dozens of nuclear blasts in Australia and the Pacific between 1952 and 1963 in the race to build thermonuclear weapons. Nearly 600 highly toxic radiation experiments were also conducted in the Outback, leaving it one of the most contaminated places on Earth.

Earlier this year the veterans, alongside Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, handed in a 500-page dossier of evidence collated by the Mirror newspaper to the Metropolitan Police. They claim the MoD’s actions amount to potential misconduct in public office with a cover-up of radiation experiments – a claim the department refutes.

The charity LABRATS which represents veterans, scientists, civilians and their families who have been affected by the nuclear testing programme is preparing to launch a civil legal action against the MoD, claiming it continues to conceal their health records.

The MoD has said it has commissioned “comprehensive” work to examine the questions over medical records.

In his film, now viewed a staggering 11 million times, Stefanovic has this message for Keir Starmer:

“This is no way for the government to treat national hero’s. This country owes them and their families a huge debt of honour and gratitude, but instead successive governments have stonewalled them and subjected them to decades of maltreatment and injustice. Now in power the Labour government must honour the commitment it made to them in opposition. You shook their hands in opposition; I won’t let you shake them off now”

It is now 2026 and no meeting has been forthcoming, the veterans are still waiting, but how much longer can they wait?