Johnny Mercer: The British minister who could go to jail over a war crimes probe

LONDON — Meet Veterans' Minister Johnny Mercer: decorated commando, outspoken defender of troops from “vexatious” prosecutions, and — just maybe — future jailbird.

The combative ex-army captain is facing the prospect of court sanctions for refusing to name military informants who told him of allegations that Britain’s cherished SAS — an elite special forces unit of the British army — may have unlawfully killed men and children in Afghanistan.

That such claims are being aired by a serving government minister — who describes himself as the nation's “number one defender” of troops — at a public inquiry is extraordinary in its own right. So are Mercer's concerns about what he describes as cover-ups and a failure of the British establishment to properly investigate wrongdoing.

But it's the legal threats against Mercer that put him at risk of jail and could leave his boss, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, facing a difficult choice. POLITICO spoke to Mercer’s supporters and critics to shed light on the bind he's in — and pored over evidence to the public inquiry investigating claims of British military misconduct in Afghanistan.

Hero complex

Mercer has been known as one of Westminster’s more colorful characters for years. He became a Conservative MP when he won Plymouth Moor View, in Devon in the far south west of England, against the odds in 2015.

In doing so, Mercer snatched a seat with a large naval population from the opposition Labour party. It came despite an apparently dire forecast by Conservative strategists — and fueled what some of his critics call a “hero” complex.

Since then, the veteran — who earned medals for completing three tours of Afghanistan, including with the Special Boats Service (SBS) — has won a deep affection from Britain's military community for taking on what they describe as “law-fare."

Angered by what he called “industrial scale" legal action being brought against British troops, particularly those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mercer waged a pressure campaign to tighten protections for people in service — and won.

Mercer was key in getting the U.K.'s Iraq Historic Allegations Team — which had been looking into hundreds of cases of alleged abuse during Britain's involvement there — shut down.

Two more big, and sometimes controversial, pieces of legislation aiming to shield troops — the Overseas Operation Act and the Northern Ireland Legacy Act — were signed into law in part because of Mercer's work.

Indeed, so ardent in his quest was Mercer that he resigned as a defence minister in Boris Johnson’s government after demanding more legal protections for British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland. He was brought back into the fold a year later. 

But that work made his pursuit of the Afghanistan claims all the more striking.

Thanks to the U.K.'s ongoing Afghanistan inquiry, it’s now known Mercer heard in his military days of a bad “odor” around an SAS unit accused of firing upon civilians in Afghanistan who were not posing a threat.

Serving officers then approached Mercer while he was an MP warning him to be careful with his law-fare crusade because of “horrific” allegations about the SAS, including unlawful killings alleged to have taken place between 2010 and 2013.

Mercer claimed he was told first-hand by one member of the U.K.'s special forces that he'd been asked to carry a “dropped weapon." Such a pistol could not be linked to NATO forces — and so could be planted on dead individuals to make them appear as if they were combatants and so legitimate targets. 

In government, Mercer was tasked with investigating the Afghanistan claims and was unable to dispel them — bluntly telling military top brass "something stinks."

'Something stinks'

That set the stage for his bombshell, voluntary appearance as veterans’ affairs minister at the Afghanistan inquiry. Mercer didn't exactly hold back.

He told the judge-led probe that, as well as hearing allegations of wrongdoing from U.K. military whistleblowers, members of Afghan partner units had informed him about British killings of restrained men and children.

He branded an apparent lack of video evidence for the operations under investigation “simply not plausible" — and slammed a “collective amnesia” among those who took part. “It is not credible to sit there and tell me you don't remember killing children,” Mercer said.

The minister even argued that his old boss — former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace — had failed to properly investigate the allegations. He lodged the same claim about the army's then-special services director Roly Walker — who will become Britain's most senior soldier in June.

Further fueling Mercer's claims of a cover-up, the inquiry heard evidence that a senior official at the Ministry of Defence had even watered down the record of a meeting in which the minister warned he was unconvinced by the government's shuttered investigation into alleged SAS war crimes, Operation Northmoor, which found no wrongdoing.

Mercer said he felt as if he was being “gamed” by the MoD — brought in to introduce a contentious law to protect troops at the same time as the defense department was failing to properly investigate alleged abuses.

“My name is intimately wrapped up in this stuff,” he told the inquiry, expressing concern that “this sullies my personal work.”

'Pretty brutal'

The minister's two-day appearance at the inquiry in February was classic Johnny Mercer, flipping between the frank and direct to the vexed and vague.

At times Mercer was self-aggrandizing (he boasted of running a “pretty brutal campaign against my own government” in 2016 to 18 to get law-fare on the agenda). At others he was deeply combative (“This court doesn’t intimidate me. You don’t intimidate me," he said in one such heated exchange.)

But it was the demand from the inquiry chair that Mercer reveal the identity of his sources which sparked a firestorm.

Faced with the order, Mercer said he would be holding onto his “integrity” rather than “burn” his whisteblowers.

Charles Haddon-Cave, the inquiry's chair, sent Mercer away with a legal demand to provide the names of his informants and ordered him to reflect on whether he was on the side of getting to the truth, or of an "omertà, a wall of silence" out of a "misguided" sense of loyalty.

The veterans' minister has been given a deadline of this Wednesday May 8 to comply with the inquiry’s demands.

Haddon-Cave, a senior judge, will then decide whether to refer the case to the High Court, which has the power to fine Mercer — or jail him.

Failing to comply could result in up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment. 

'Prepared to go to prison'

As the deadline looms, Mercer has been asking his contacts for consent to hand their names over — but there’s no indication they'll all agree. “Johnny would be prepared to go to prison over it,” said one Cabinet colleague, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive government matters. They described Mercer as “one of a kind.”

Mercer doesn't plan to go down without a fight.

His team is preparing for a possible legal appeal, such as a judicial review, if the case is referred to the High Court. The inquiry chair could also decide it simply would not be in the public interest to legally pursue a minister who in other ways has been of assistance.

In the meantime, there's some frustration among those watching the inquiry that important evidence has been overshadowed by the Mercer show. Lydia Day, who has been following the hearings closely as part of the University of Westminster’s Unredacted research project, said Mercer’s failure to comply with the inquiry would be “deeply concerning.”

But, she added, the row “should not distract from the importance of Mercer’s evidence." She's particularly focused on the airing of such damaging claims while ministers push on with legislation that “makes it even harder for former service personnel to be held accountable for precisely the actions that Mercer was so concerned about.”

Others are more sanguine. “We’re not spending our days worrying about Johnny Mercer,” one person linked to the inquiry said.

Mercer has experience — of a kind — with the prison system, having appeared on the “Banged Up: Stars Behind Bars” TV show. He went so far as to smoke a cigarette that had been stashed in a cell mate’s very intimate storage space. “He got a taste for it,” joked an ally.

But even a fine would leave Mercer, and Sunak, in a tight spot. Failing to uphold the law would be a clear breach of the U.K.'s ministerial code, and would typically be a sacking offense. 

Sunak hasn't distanced himself from Mercer since his jeopardy began, opting to bring the minister along to a high-profile veterans announcement last month. Mercer remains highly popular with the Tory Party’s membership, ranking as the second most popular Cabinet minister with grassroots bible Conservative Home. That would make sacking him even tricker.

But Mercer may also be spooked by a big threat closer to home: Labour seems poised to take back his seat at this year’s general election. “His statement is all about his legacy … he can claim to have gone out on a high,” said one critic on the opposition benches. “He’s got himself in a right pickle for being the ‘hero.’”

The same MP argued that the whole inquiry row is a classic example of Mercer’s ego getting the better of him. The minister is well known for posting topless images of himself online, and beefing with critics on Twitter.

But Mercer's supporters, including those in the military community, vehemently disagree.

Richard Dannatt, who led the British army from 2006 to 2009, said: “These whistleblowers came to minister Mercer in confidence and have not given minister Mercer permission to hand over their names, which is why he has not done so.”

“It’s not about Johnny Mercer, it’s about the public interest of whistleblowers being able to approach public officials,” another ally of Mercer — who declined to comment for this article — said. “He won’t be standing down on this.”

This article has been updated to correct the name of the University of Westminster research project.