Theresa May, it's not patriotic to call claims against British soldiers 'vexatious' – it's patriotic to investigate them

Any greatness that Britain could claim lies not in shutting its eyes to its moments of cruelty, but by being brave enough to recognise what it has done and allowing justice to flood through. We must pay the accusations from Iraq and Northern Ireland proper mind

Residents fleeing the Iraqi city of Basra in March 2003

It's 2003. In Basra, a hastily made detention centre has been set up. There is a man lying on the floor, so badly beaten he is suffering from acute kidney failure. He is not the only one. Eight other men lie broken in pain, some in their own waste.

One final man lies dead on the toilet of the detention centre. He has had his nose broken, his ribs broken – and these are just some of the 93 separate injuries which the autopsy will eventually uncover.

In his dying moments, this hotel receptionist pleaded to be left alone, screaming, "I'm going to die”. In response, his head was smashed against the wall. The person smashing Baha Mousa's head into cement was Cpl Donald Payne, a member of The Queen's Lancashire Regiment.

He also decided to turn his detainees into an orchestra, by making them scream in pain to greet visitors. "Cpl Payne found this funny," former soldier Gareth Aspinall said. “When visitors came across they also found it funny.”

Cpl Donald Payne served one year in prison after being found guilty of war crimes. One year in prison.

IHAT is the Iraq Historic Allegations Team. Its task is to investigate allegations of abuse by British soldiers against Iraqi civilians spanning 2003 until 2009. Baha Mousa is one of the cases it looked into. Asked about IHAT while in New York for the UN General Assembly, the Prime Minister Theresa May said she was concerned that there may be "an industry of vexatious allegations coming forward".

Let's briefly look to allay our PM's concerns by looking at what it takes for a case to go from being referred to IHAT to a courtroom and a prosecution.

First is the initial assessment stage. As of the end of June, allegations relating to 3,367 victims were received - only 1,668 of these made it beyond this stage, with the others dropped for a variety of reasons, from duplication to being outside of IHAT's jurisdiction or the issue involved not being criminal.

Now let's just focus in on the allegations of unlawful killing which IHAT must now consider – there are 325.

So far, IHAT has closed only 90 of them. In 88 such cases, it was not possible to find sufficient evidence - but the impossibility of obtaining evidence does not equate to the action being brought simply to irritate the British state.

However, in two unlawful killing cases, IHAT did find it to be sufficiently serious. This means the case has done the incredible, and passed IHAT's Evidential Sufficiency Test.

Only one of these was handed to the Director of Service Prosecutions (DSP), with IHAT recommending the solider was prosecuted.

The DSP then decided not to prosecute - Mr Waleed Fayay Mezban, the driver of a minivan, was shot as he drove away from a British check point after stopping and speaking with one solider.

It’s difficult to imagine how on earth the PM can claim that cases which actually make it to court, or reach compensation, are even possibly “vexatious”, when they have to overcome all of the above to even reach that stage.

Out of the 3,367 referred to IHAT, only one action has been successful - relating to a Mail on Sunday obtained video which shows an Iraqi man suffering a horrific, hour-long beating from a group of British soldiers. A single British soldier was identified, admitted responsibility and was fined £3,000. The case was not sent to court; instead it was merely referred to his Commanding Officer, and the soldier subsequently faced no further action.

Of course, May did concede in the same interview this week that "if there are allegations - proper allegations - of criminal activity, those need to be investigated." In the current environment, unbelievably, this is a progressive attitude. Since 2015 especially, the government's approach to potential prosecutions and investigations into abuse of British soldiers has been alarming.

What we should all worry about is the possibility of the Defence Secretary saying British soldiers shouldn't have to comply with basic human rights standards, or the 187 compensation claims against the MoD which were forced to be dropped after a witch-hunt against the law firm which brought the claims forced the whole firm into extinction. Or the fact that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, has refused to release £10m out of a promised £150m to allow various inquiries to shed light into the darkest, most haunting corners of Northern Ireland's past. And then there are the recent revelations that Cameron tried to shut down IHAT while Prime Minister.

These are just several examples indicative of a persistent attempt to derail or delegitimise these cases and inquiries, and the justification in doing so is always couched in patriotism.

And I am done with it.

In the coming year, we will see prosecutions brought against British soldiers, from Northern Ireland as well as IHAT. These prosecutions need to be faced with maturity and humility.

The integrity of the armed forces is not protected by preventing any prosecutions, or by pretending that all claims against them are spurious. Our armed forces are better protected by weeding out those who abuse the authority they are given.

We justify allowing young people to go and die in khaki on the basis of higher ideals: freedom, democracy, liberty. By protecting brutality from prosecution and murderers from justice, you destroy that argument.

Caring about your country does not mean you should be blind to its ills. It should mean the opposite. During Bloody Sunday, one soldier stood over a man as he lay injured on the ground, took aim and executed him on the pavement. No one can tell me patriotism should lead you to cocoon that executor from even a semblance of justice. To suggest that what he did wasn’t un-British is to devalue Britishness.

The principle applies whether the victim is in Northern Ireland, or Iraq; whether they are Libyans who suffered rendition or Kenyans castrated by British soldiers for trying to exercise self-determination.

Any greatness that Britain could claim lies not in shutting its eyes to its moments of cruelty, but by being brave enough to recognise what it has done and allowing justice to flood through, to wash it of these stains. Unless we disown these actions by allowing our rule of law to apply, we accept that these actions were done in our country's name; our name; and that we stand for nothing better.

Theresa May’s opposition to “an industry of vexatious claims” against British troops over claims of abuse in Iraq doesn’t speak of her love for our country; it threatens the very principles upon which it was built.