Anniversaries of the Hillsborough tragedy call to mind historian Lucy Noakes’ description of grief as a ‘disruptive emotion’ with the ability to ‘transform our sense of self’. Writing about the home front during the world wars, Noakes explains how authorities, anxious about domestic unrest, sought to discourage this disruptive emotion, instead promoting stoic self-control as the patriotic response.  

Hillsborough serves as an example of how the British stiff upper lip, while a virtue in wartime, has been used by the establishment to stifle and discredit legitimate outrage. This tendency was typified in Boris Johnson’s infamous 2004 Spectator column, when the then-Tory MP decried the ‘deeply unattractive psyche’ of the people of Liverpool who ‘see themselves whenever possible as victims and resent their victim status; yet at the same time, they wallow in it.’

For Boris Johnson, the real scandal of Hillsborough was not the police failures leading to 97 deaths or the subsequent cover-ups, but rather the refusal of the bereaved to keep calm and carry on in the face of injustice. This attitude, widely held across Britain’s political and media establishment, helps explain the extraordinary hostility directed at the city following the tragedy.  It is precisely because Hillsborough families sought to channel their grief to disrupt and transform the institutions responsible that their campaign was so maligned.

The British state has, on occasion, recognised past injustices and admitted wrongdoing. The Macpherson Report confirmed that racism was a factor in the failure of the Metropolitan Police to investigate the murder of Stephen Lawrence properly, and the Chilcot Inquiry disputed the legal and political justifications for the Iraq War. But however welcome, these reckonings are limited by design. Only taking place when public opinion is already with the aggrieved, and with victims under-resourced and scant consequences for officials who obscure the truth, they are more an exercise in repairing the state’s reputation than delivering systemic change.

The Hillsborough inquest itself, which in 2016 ruled that fans were unlawfully killed, overturning the original verdict of accidental death, is one such example. Fans were exonerated, the South Yorkshire Police’s deceit exposed, and apologies issued. It confirmed much of what families already knew. Still, the damage had long been done and those responsible evaded meaningful consequences. Recognising this pattern, the Hillsborough Law Now campaign was established to pursue legislative change.

Their core demand was a statutory ‘duty of candour’ — a legal obligation for public officials to tell the truth and proactively co-operate with official investigations and inquiries, and criminal penalties for officials who knowingly provide false information or obstruct justice. It also demanded levelling the playing field by ensuring that bereaved families have access to publicly funded legal representation so they’re not left outgunned against powerful institutions with significant resources. If implemented, it would ensure that no community has to endure the same decades-long struggle as the families affected by Hillsborough.

When Keir Starmer used his first conference speech as prime minister in September last year to repeat a pledge to introduce a Hillsborough Law by the events’ thirty-sixth anniversary, it appeared a corner had turned. The prime minister called it ‘A law for Liverpool. A law for the 97. A law that people should never have needed to fight so hard to get. But that will be delivered by this Labour government.’

Had this promise been kept, today would have been one of celebration for a determined and long-fought campaign. Instead, following Labour’s confirmation that the bill had been delayed, supposedly to achieve ‘the best version’, it is proving to be another occasion of institutional indifference.

A recent government media briefing outraged families by claiming the legislation could lead to civil servants being prosecuted for telling a white lie about being late for work to bosses, despite it being clear that criminal sanctions would be reserved for police or public officials misleading the public. The briefing suggested that the government either doesn’t understand or, more likely, is intentionally distorting the duty of candour.

Hillsborough families have been explicit that their demands are ‘all or nothing’ and that any watering down of this legal duty would constitute a betrayal. They have also been clear that it is about helping victims of other scandals get justice. This is what is so admirable about their fight and why it is facing such opposition. From the Grenfell to the pandemic to the UK’s military support for genocide in Gaza, the legal changes being pursued threaten genuine accountability for recent, ongoing and future scandals. That means a real risk of justice for victims and consequences for the powerful.

Observers of Keir Starmer’s career as the Director of Public Prosecutions could be forgiven for holding suspicions of a man with his track record. From the police killings of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson to the persecution of Julian Assange, Starmer’s history often shows him siding with powerful interests against victims of injustice. If the Hillsborough Law is abandoned, it will leave no ambiguity about the fact that it is those interests his government serves.