Labour's big beasts have given Britain's nuclear test heroes the party's full-throated support, bringing hope of an end to their 70 years of injustice.
Shadow ministers, metro mayors and backbenchers joined with the Mirror to insist that the next Labour government finally deliver them recognition in all its forms.
Around 22,000 servicemen took part in hundreds of Cold War radiation experiments between 1952 and 1991, and are now proven to have increased risks of cancer, death and suicide. Their wives suffered miscarriages and their children have 10 times the normal rate of birth defects, but they have been repeatedly denied war pensions, their own health records, and even a medal.
Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey, addressing a fringe event with veterans and their supporters, said: "There is no good reason, no good moral reason, no good military reason, for withholding the recognition and compensation that other countries have had. Your campaign is our campaign. It is a pledge we are determined to deliver."
The veterans, led by backbencher Rebecca Long-Bailey, are asking for a medal, a national apology, a public inquiry, genetic research, and education packages.
Healey, who will have a hand in forming the manifesto for the next general election, responded by saying: "I want to ensure we go into the next election with a pledge to right this injustice, and to bring Britain finally, after 70 years, alongside those other atomic test nations that have done right by their veterans and their families. And we will."
He praised the families and the Mirror's 40-year campaign for recognition. "These are the people alongside whom I feel most proud to be speaking," said Healey. "There are a lot of newspapers that claim to be campaigning titles, but the Mirror, with this campaign, is taking on the whole British Establishment."
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham told the activists: "This is an issue that shames the nation. It's appalling the way people have been treated, people who were overseas, serving our country, and sent out into danger without any PPE, any consent, any prior knowledge of what was being done."
He added: "There is far more than a medal needed here, it's truth, it's justice and reparation for the nuclear test veterans and their families. But it's more than that, we have to change the way this country works, and level up the scales of justice."
The meeting was one fo the most emotional of the fringe, with not a dry eye as veteran John Morris, 85, of Rochdale, speaking of his 60 year fight for the truth about the death of his four-month-old son Steven.
"I will fight the Labour Party if it does not honour its promise. I will be a thorn in their side. We're relying on you," he said.
"I watched the funeral of the Queen and there were people with medals because they'd been grouse-shooting on the moors. We gave this power its nuclear power and we have never been thanked or rewarded."
The meeting gave him a long standing ovation, before hearing from descendants Steve Purse, who was born with undiagnosable birth defects after his father took part in toxic radiation experiments in the Outback, and Alan Owen, whose father James was ordered to take part in 24 US nuclear tests.
"My dad was literally wallowing in alpha radiation," said Steve, of Prestatyn. "The safety measures were a single wire fence which the irradiated sand just blew through."
Mirror editor Alison Phillips told the meeting that when Labour was last in power, the newspaper did not do enough to force them to resolve the nuke test vets scandal.
She said: "If Labour does get power again, we will absolutely be holding their feet to the fire in the future, and absolutely demanding justice for these people who have been denied it for so very long."
When last in Opposition in 1990, Labour backed an amendment which would have paid compensation to test veterans, but turned their backs and refused to address the issue under Tony Blair. When Gordon Brown took office a High Court case meant it was taken out of politician's hands, and a 2009 effort by ministers to offered a settlement was stymied by officials who ensured that veterans were never told.
