It’s fair to say the section of the Conservative party manifesto dealing with Northern Ireland, all 302 words of it, is probably skipped over by most readers. The ‘province’ doesn’t really feature in British political discourse. Yet the commitments made in those few paragraphs now have massive ramifications in weeks and months to come.

The manifesto promises to establish ‘new bodies’ to deal with the painful residue of the troubles, in which 3,600 people lost their lives. What we euphemistically call the ‘legacy of the past’. Crucially, it says they will not ‘unfairly focus on [those killed by] former members of the Armed Forces and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.’

It adds: ‘The immense contribution of the security forces during the troubles should never be forgotten. We will reject any attempts to rewrite history which seek to justify or legitimise terrorism.’

This trope has been gathering pace for the past few months. Back in January, Northern Ireland Secretary, James Brokenshire, told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper there was an ‘imbalance’ in the number of Troubles-era investigations featuring former British soldiers, claiming the current system was ‘not working’.

It amounted to a barely concealed attempt to browbeat the independent Public Prosecution Service and the Police Service of Northern Ireland into dropping investigations into killings carried out by the British State.

Two weeks ago, Barra McGrory, the Director of Public Prosecutions announced he was leaving his post early. He has been under sustained pressure by a handful of Conservative backbenchers and unionist politicians for pursuing investigations into killings committed by former soldiers which the MPs erroneously claim, amounts to nine-tenths of the PSNI’s workload.

However, figures from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, reported on by the BBC, conclusively pour cold water on this claim of ‘imbalance’, showing that just 32 per cent of current investigations were in connection to former soldiers.

For British politics this whole issue is toxic. Ministers are desperate to avoid images of old soldiers in handcuffs, charged with crimes from half a lifetime ago. Yet investigations into the troubles will inevitably alight on killings carried out by State forces. Politicians might want to avoid the past but Lady Justice, being blind, cannot.

Last week, families of the ten Catholics killed by British soldiers in the Ballymurphy area of Belfast in 1971, during the imposition of internment without trial, held a vigil outside the Ministry of Defence as they begin civil proceedings over the deaths of their loved ones, with new inquests expected next year.

Meanwhile, eighteen former soldiers involved in the Bloody Sunday massacre – where 14 civil rights demonstrators were killed by paratroopers in 1972 – have faced questioning with a decision on whether charges will be brought against any of them expected in the summer.

It seems inevitable that charges will be brought against some former soldiers at some stage for some of the killings attributed to them during the troubles. All the more reason that there now needs to be a comprehensive deal on a process for establishing the sometimes unpalatable truth of thirty years’ worth of conflict, while, hopefully, achieving some measure of reconciliation.

British ministers have foolishly fudged this issue for at least a decade. Commitments to establishing a process come and go. Basically, Whitehall hopes the passage of time and the fact that everyone, on all sides, has dirty hands, might sustain an awkward modus vivendi.

The bold – and indeed just – commitment Theresa May should have made was to clean the stable properly by ordering a South African-style peace and justice commission where all participants give evidence, perhaps in return for immunity from prosecution, in a bid to put the past to rest equitably and fully. Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams recommitted the republican movement to co-operating with such a process just last month.

Unfortunately, the Conservatives have little credibility on these matters, ever since David Cameron’s 2011 U-turn on a commitment to hold a full judicial inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane, the Belfast human rights solicitor gunned down at his dinner table by loyalist assassins in 1989.

Instead, the Conservatives’ manifesto is an indication they seek a partial justice. The clear implication is that ministers intend to expunge the potential criminality and mistakes of police officers, soldiers, spies, officials and, indeed, ministers; perhaps by applying a statute of limitations on prosecutions. It would be as foolish as it is unjust and shows a poor grasp of the elemental politics of Northern Ireland.

It misreads the mood of many bereaved families, who often want nothing more than to have the truth about their loved ones uncovered and the record set straight. By committing to ‘Britwash’ Northern Ireland’s troubles, however, Theresa May is set to betray those families and rewrite Northern Ireland’s history in the most scandalously partisan way.