General UK Defence Discussion

[new guy]

Hopefully a step in the right direction.

Probably best to start with the hot water.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defe ... -personnel

Quite, absolutely bloody disgraceful isn't it.....

[topman]

Its nothing much to do with hot water but more to do with options for allowances for housing.

[Poiuytrewq]

Good news - everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... -election/

[new guy]

Good news - everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... -election/

Can you please Copy and paste article contents please.

[SW1]

2003 vibes trust me I’m Tony.

[Poiuytrewq]

Good news - everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... -election/

Can you please Copy and paste article contents please.

Labour: ‘You can trust us on defence. We are committed to Nato and US leadership’
Two decades after Iraq, the party’s shadow foreign and defence secretaries echo Blair as they mount a defence and diplomacy offensive
Grinning under the glare of the world’s cameras, Tony Blair laughed nervously and looked to his left. A mischievous newspaper reporter had asked the president of the United States whether he thought he was sitting with the next British prime minister.

“It’s all I can do to keep up with American politics,” Bill Clinton replied, with a smile. “I just hope he’s talking to the next American president.”

Blair, now Sir Tony, would later recall his April 1996 trip to the White House as a “relief”, and the beginning of a friendship between the two men that continued after Labour’s landslide election victory the following year.

The trick has since been repeated, without much success, by various opposition leaders looking to project themselves as statesmen worthy of Britain’s highest political office.

Less than 18 months before the next election, Sir Keir Starmer has yet to make his own pilgrimage, but his shadow cabinet has racked up tens of thousands of air miles crossing the Atlantic – and connections with the Biden White House are growing.

This week it is David Lammy and John Healey who are in Washington, to promote a new, robust Labour foreign and defence policy.

The duo, who are keen to stress their personal friendship, have spent the week gladhanding congressmen and giving speeches at Washington think tanks.

The present danger to the West could not be more apparent. On Thursday, just a mile from where I meet Lammy and Healey at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial, the White House is hosting Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss an impasse in Congress over US military support for Ukraine.

David Lammy and John Healey admire the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington

“We’re very conscious that we arrived in Washington at a time where there’s heated political debate,” Lammy says. “That debate is different, I think, to what we experience in the UK.”

The Tottenham MP is no stranger to America. He says he has visited the country almost every year since he was 18, when he was inspired to study law at Harvard University by the NBC drama LA Law.

His connections here are impressive. At an event for black Harvard alumni some years later, he struck up a close friendship with Barack Obama. The pair keep in touch.

This week’s trip is his fourth to Washington since becoming Sir Keir’s shadow foreign secretary in November 2021, and he talks of Labour as an “Atlanticist” party that looks to the United States for leadership in times of global difficulty.

Since the latest crisis, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Labour has supported the US and UK’s supply of arms, aid and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine unconditionally.

The conflict has provided the party with an opportunity to chip off the veneer of distrust on defence issues it acquired among British voters after the Iraq War and the beleaguered leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

A poll by Ipsos Mori in June found that of 14 key policy areas, defence was the only issue where Labour performed worse than the Conservatives.

Healey, a Labour MP since 1997, is now the shadow defence secretary and has been charged with reversing the damage of the Corbyn years to convince voters – and the Americans – that his party can be trusted.

Tony Blair enjoyed a friendship with Bill Clinton that continued after Labour’s landslide election victory

This week he was careful to avoid the mistakes of Neil Kinnock, who visited Washington in 1987 and, during a “polite and businesslike” meeting with Ronald Reagan, told the president he supported nuclear disarmament. Reagan replied that he was “crazy”.

Admitting that there “have been doubts about Labour in the past few years”, Healey praises his party’s “unshakeable Labour commitment to Nato” – a statement that would have provoked disbelief just two years ago.

Now, he argues for Britain to take on a “lead European nation” role in the organisation, backed by a “Nato test” of the armed forces in the first 100 days of Sir Keir’s administration.

“If there is a change to Labour next year, there’ll be no change to Britain’s resolve to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Healey says.

Lammy adds: “We want to ensure that we’re reconnecting the United Kingdom across the globe.

“Actually, the Americans see that as hugely important. And, of course, we underline the importance of the special relationship and the transatlantic relationship at a time of big geopolitical challenge and change.”

Their trip comes after a series of announcements designed to align Labour more closely with the Biden administration.

Like Blair and Clinton, who developed a transatlantic “Third Way”, Sir Keir and his team are hoping to emulate “Bidenomics”, and have pledged to launch a gargantuan new funding programme for decarbonisation technology, adapted from Biden’s £350 billion Inflation Reduction Act.

Speaking the language of the White House’s current crop of economic advisers, Rachel Reeves told an audience in Washington in May: “We must foster new partnerships between the free market and an active state and between countries across the world who share values and interests.”

The party’s aides have also been dispatched to learn from the Democrats’ campaigning strategies and use of election data in the Rust Belt – thought to be similar to Britain’s “Red Wall”.

It seems the charm offensive is working. This week’s trip has seen Lammy and Healey invited into the Pentagon for meetings with top officials including Michael Chase, the deputy assistant Secretary of Defence for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, and among policy anoraks in the Washington defence establishment there no longer seems to be concern about Labour’s commitment to Nato.

George W. Bush described NATO as a 'vital' relationship for the United States and for Europe in 2005

In fact, Healey argues it is the Conservatives that have damaged American trust by cutting troop numbers, which have fallen by 20,000 in the past 15 years and are set to decline to their lowest level in 200 years by 2025.

“It has led to questions, including from US allies, about whether Britain can fulfil its obligations to Nato in full,” he says.

Labour has pledged to run a full military review in the first year of a new government, hinting at a reversal of the cuts, but refuses to commit to the policy until it has “classified information about capabilities” it says are held by the Ministry of Defence.

Although the party’s message on defence is one of reassurance, it does have grand plans for a shakeup of the Foreign Office, which is to be partly repurposed as a billboard to advertise overseas investment.

Lammy is drawing up a “strategic assessment” of Britain’s diplomats who will move officials out of well-staffed embassies to bolster the ranks in countries where the UK can drum up more foreign trade and investment.

The current destinations for more diplomats include Brazil, India, Japan and Germany, while the number of existing “economic attachés” will be increased by diverting resources from elsewhere in the department.

An earlier policy pledge, to bring back the Department for International Development, is now thought to have been dropped amid concerns it would cost too much money.Instead, the Foreign Office will be more heavily integrated into the Ministry of Defence, with Labour strategists drawing on the words of Lord Robertson, the last British Nato secretary general, who once declared: “Strong defence is sound foreign policy.”

Healey says that plan has already been conveyed to senior officials in the Pentagon during this week’s visit. “They like the fact that David and I are here together, the shadow foreign secretary and shadow defence secretary,” he says.

Lammy and Healy are aligned in their political aims

“They’ve not been used to seeing that from the UK government, where they’ve seen the foreign secretary fighting with the defence secretary in public over Afghanistan [and] Liz Truss when she was foreign secretary urging British veterans to go and fight in Ukraine. We put that behind us.”

While Labour’s efforts to woo the US follow the playbook of many parties preparing for government, another area of its foreign policy is far more controversial. Among the plans to “make Britain influential in the world” is another ambition, says Healey: “We need to make a success of Brexit.”

Labour’s attempts to align itself more closely with the EU has repeatedly drawn it into rows with Brexiteers, who fear Sir Keir is planning to reverse the Brexit process.

At a conference in Montreal last week, he unveiled plans to hold regular meetings with Brussels to discuss a new “security pact” and other joint projects.

Speaking on a panel at the event, he told an audience of like-minded centre-Leftists that “most of the conflict with the UK being outside [of the EU] arises insofar as the UK wants to diverge and do different things to the rest of our EU partners”.

To the horror of Brexiteers back home, he added: “Actually we don’t want to diverge, we don’t want to lower standards, we don’t want to rip up environmental standards, working standards for people that work, food standards and all the rest of it.”

Asked whether he is concerned Labour’s plans for the EU could deter Brexit voters – many of whom voted for Boris Johnson for the first time in 2019 – Lammy scowls and shakes his head.

“Brexit has happened, the decision has been made, the red lines we’ve been clear on,” he says. “We will not be going back into the single market, we will not be going back into a customs union.”

Pointing to examples of EU laws that would be retained under Labour, he adds: “I don’t think your readers are surprised that the Labour Party is committed to high standards – the British people are committed to high standards.

Two decades after Iraq, the Labour Party is launching a diplomacy offensive

“We want high standards on environmental protection. We want high standards on workers’ rights. That is not new, we’re not tearing up arrangements for the sake of it.” Back in Washington, the EU is less of a concern for policymakers, but the bloc has been applauded for its contributions to Ukrainian forces fighting Vladimir Putin.

But there is concern among Democrats about what might happen to the war effort after next year’s presidential election if Donald Trump returns to the White House.

The former president has pledged to bring a speedy end to the conflict by rapidly cutting military support from the US and brokering a peace treaty. His “America First” strategy, trialled during his first term in office, is a form of isolationism and views the Ukraine war as a problem for European states to deal with.

Unsurprisingly, it is unpopular in Europe, where Ukraine’s allies believe a deal would involve it giving up territory in exchange for flimsy ceasefire guarantees from the Kremlin.

A collapse in American support would make Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south east of the country futile – even if pleasing some US voters who would prefer to see the money spent on domestic priorities.

As Zelensky told congressmen on Thursday: “If we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war.” Both Lammy and Healey are clear they would use Nato to pressurise a Trump administration to continue funding for Kyiv, although are cautious to say so outright.

Gone are the days when Lammy would describe the former president as a “dangerous clown” and an “enemy of democracy”. Now, he talks the language of a diplomat.

“If I have the privilege of being foreign secretary [and] if John has the privilege of being defence secretary, our job in the end is to pursue British interests,” he says.

“Coming to the United States, the truth is that most often our interests align. And so, of course, we would seek to influence whoever becomes president of the United States, and I’m very confident that we would not just be doing that as the United Kingdom.

“We will be doing that alongside our allies of Canada, France and Germany, and across the North Atlantic Alliance.”

Healey adds that he is optimistic about Right-wing threats to deny Ukraine a $24 billion (£20 billion) aid package, and says he will leave the US “much more reassured” that the “central determination that spans the political blend of most of the Republican Party is very strongly for Ukraine”.

While there is some debate about the importance of funding a war in Europe, US lawmakers are united in their concern about another threat – China.

Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, has said the US’s relationship with the Communist state must be “competitive, collaborative and adversarial when it must be”, while Lammy says his own approach is modelled on the “three Cs” of competition, challenge and co-operation.

David Lammy: ‘Our job in the end is to pursue British interests’

Describing the Government’s strategy as “like a drunken naval soldier”, he pledges to conduct an “audit” of Britain’s relationship and describes “threats” from China including “the potential for espionage”, a crackdown on protesters outside the Chinese embassy last October and a network of “secret police stations” in the West.

Lammy adds that while conflict between China and Taiwan is “neither necessary nor inevitable”, he is concerned about the “high state of alert” in the country after Xi Jinping restated his opposition to the country’s independence at the Communist Party Congress in October.

“In Washington, because it’s a Pacific nation, they’re alive to the instruction from President Xi that his military should be ready by 2025,” he says.

By that point, Labour may find itself in government. Although Sir Keir drills his team regularly with a mantra to “not get complacent”, the party has stepped up its preparations for the election and what may lie beyond.

Since Rishi Sunak took office, Labour has held a polling lead of around 20 points that many think will last until the next election.

Sue Gray, once the Cabinet Office’s top enforcer and partygate inquisitor, has been brought into the party’s Southwark headquarters as Sir Keir’s chief of staff, while Peter Mandelson, the Blair-era adviser, has been tasked with teaching Labour aides how to “spin” journalists.

The party’s polling lead has not gone unnoticed in Washington, either.

“We are probably a year or so out from a general election in the UK [and] your readers will no doubt be watching the polls, and have come to their own conclusion as to who might win the election,” said Lammy at a think tank event this week in Washington.

The Daily Telegraph's Tony Diver (centre) says that the Labour party’s polling lead has not gone unnoticed in Washington

“I’ll spell it out,” replied Max Bergmann, the event’s host. “Labour looks far ahead in the polls … I think many in Washington are very interested in the direction of the Labour Party when it comes to the special relationship.”

For Sir Keir, it will soon be time to make his own trip to Washington to answer that question himself.

Unlike his shadow foreign secretary, the Labour leader is relatively unknown in the United States, save for the impression he left as head of the Crown Prosecution Service on visits over a decade ago.

“My impression was that he was somewhat by the book,” says one US official who knew him at the time. “The meetings were always very congenial and he was very good to work with. He didn’t strike me as super political.”

With an election approaching, that perception may be about to change.

[SW1]

https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/170 ... q02bHexwZA

BREAKING: US National Security Council official says his country is 'monitoring a large Serbian military deployment along the border with Kosovo'

[SW1]

https://www.forces.net/news/british-arm ... n-tensions

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said:"Due to the current situation in Kosovo, we have transferred command of the 1st Battalion of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment to Nato so it can provide support if required.

"The UK continues to play a leading role in Nato, making substantial contributions to multinational operations, and the Battalion had recently arrived in the region for a long-planned training exercise."

[Poiuytrewq]

Well, at least he isn’t sitting on the fence!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... o-ukraine/

British troops will be deployed in Ukraine for the first time under plans being discussed with military chiefs, the new Defence Secretary has disclosed.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Grant Shapps said that he had held talks with Army leaders about shifting an official British-led training programme “into Ukraine” rather than relying on UK and other Nato members’ bases. He also called on more British defence firms to set up factories in Ukraine.

Following a trip to Kyiv last week, Mr Shapps also revealed that he had talked to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, about how Britain’s Navy could play a role in defending commercial vessels from Russian attacks in the Black Sea.

Both moves would mark a significant escalation in the UK’s involvement in defending Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s onslaught.

Mr Shapps also:

Suggested Britain should reprise Liz Truss’s pledge to increase defence spending to three per cent of GDP, saying he viewed the Government’s current target of 2.5 per cent as a “staging post”;
Revealed that Britain was finding ways to help Ukraine “shape up” for Nato membership;
Ruled out diversity “quotas” in the military;
Insisted that migrants who settle in the UK should learn English and “be a productive part of society”, as he weighed in behind Suella Braverman in a row over the Home Secretary’s comments on multiculturalism;
Said it would be “pretty much irresponsible” not to reconsider plans for the HS2 rail line in light of the costs of Covid and the war in Ukraine.
As part of the British-led Operation Interflex, more than 20,000 recruits from the armed forces of Ukraine have received training in the UK since the start of 2022, learning battle skills at bases such as Salisbury Plain, which Mr Shapps visited on Friday.

But Nato members including the UK have avoided official deployments of troops to Ukraine owing to the risk of Western personnel being drawn into combat with Russia. Last year, Russia struck a base holding foreign fighters with about 30 missiles.


However, following a briefing with General Sir Patrick Sanders, the Chief of the General Staff, and other senior personnel at Salisbury Plain, Mr Shapps said: “I was talking today about eventually getting the training brought closer and actually into Ukraine as well.

“Particularly in the west of the country, I think the opportunity now is to bring more things ‘in country’ – not just training, but also we’re seeing BAE [the UK defence firm], for example, move into manufacturing in country, for example.

“I’m keen to see other British companies do their bit as well by doing the same thing. So I think there will be a move to get more training and production in the country.”

Separately, having assured Mr Zelensky on Wednesday that the UK “will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine”, Mr Shapps suggested that Britain was preparing to play a more active role helping the country to defend itself against attacks in the Black Sea, where Russia has been increasingly targeting cargo ships carrying grain.

The Defence Secretary, who replaced Ben Wallace in a mini-reshuffle a month ago, said: “We’ve seen in the last month or so, developments – really the first since 2014 in the Black Sea, in Crimea – and Britain is a naval nation so we can help and we can advise, particularly since the water is international water.

“It’s important that we don’t allow a situation to establish by default that somehow international shipping isn’t allowed in that water. So I think there’s a lot of places where Britain can help advise. did discuss it with President Zelensky and many others this week.”


Deploying British troops to Ukraine or offering naval support in the Black Sea would mark a significant escalation in the UK’s involvement in the conflict.

But Mr Shapps’s remarks also appear to mark a shift in the Government’s approach to publicly discussing the deployment of personnel – a move that was mirrored by France on Saturday when the French military revealed that its aircraft were carrying out surveillance over the Black Sea.

It has previously been claimed that up to 50 British personnel were among Western special forces present in Ukraine earlier this year – a matter that the Government would never discuss publicly.

During a short-lived Tory leadership campaign last summer, Mr Shapps said the UK must raise defence spending to three per cent of GDP.

The higher target was adopted by Ms Truss but then scrapped when Jeremy Hunt became Chancellor in October last year in favour of a 2.5 per cent ambition.

Asked whether he still wanted to reach three per cent, Mr Shapps said: “I think it’s important that we understand that freedom isn’t free. You have to pay for it and it also keeps us prosperous.”

[Tempest414]

Conference silly season sound bits all of it Shapps is a prick trying to play both sides of the party

[sol]

213 CR2s, so there was no replenishment of 14 tanks sent to Ukraine as one article suggested.

Compared with 2021, there are:

59 less Warriors (* after correction)
179 less Scimitars (all of them)
67 less Mastiffs
4 less Ridgebacks
39 less Wolfhounds
134 less Bulldogs
32 less AS90
6 less M270
number of Jackals for some reason decreased by 6
seems like all Husky are either sent to Ukraine or removed from service.

Number of Foxhouds is the same, but since April one was lost in the accident due fire. Only vehicle that number increased is Ajax (44), altho currently not a single in active service.

One correction, actual number of Warriors is 708 not 625

[downsizer]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66982160

Not a good look. Or a pleasant read for those that can be bothered to do so....

[SW1]

That must be unbelievably difficult for that poor girls family to read.

[Tempest414]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66982160

Not a good look. Or a pleasant read for those that can be bothered to do so....

I read this last night and again this morning it makes me so angry that this shit is still going on if it had been my daughter I would nailed his feel to floor and boiled his bollocks with a zippo lighter

[new guy]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66982160

Not a good look. Or a pleasant read for those that can be bothered to do so....

I read this last night and again this morning it makes me so angry that this shit is still going on if it had been my daughter I would nailed his feel to floor and boiled his bollocks with a zippo lighter

It makes for a very sad read, the full facts arn't available yet, but it certainly isn't looking good...

Poor kid and her family...

[Jackstar]

[Poiuytrewq]

Don’t worry we’re in safe hands!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... etary.html

It would be fascinating to know what concentrating on NATO actually entails. Is it BAOR Mk2, more Typhoon squadrons for the RAF, more MPA’s and T26 to secure the North Atlantic or is it just sound bites?

What exactly in the Indo Pacific Tilt can actually be meaningfully cut? What would that achieve and how would that help NATO?

Clearly Mr Healey knows but perhaps it’s time he told the rest of the country.

[Scimitar54]

Actually, it is rather what the Mods will accept it to be.

[downsizer]

Actually, it is rather what the Mods will accept it to be.

It's a spam post you muppet.

[Caribbean]

Actually, it is rather what the Mods will accept it to be.

It's a spam post you muppet.

Yup - it reads rather like something that ChatGPT would produce. That's the next wave - AI-generated spam!

I have no idea what people gain from it.

[SW1]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-a ... -to-sweden

The Prime Minister outlined how accelerating defence industrial cooperation within Europe and across the Atlantic was vital to ensuring nations maintain a technological advantage over Russia and protect partners from Russian attacks for generations to come.

As part of that ambition, the Prime Minister also set out how the UK will accelerate its military cooperation in the region to help detect, deter and defuse traditional and hybrid threats.

That acceleration will include sending more than 20,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and air men and women to the region next year, alongside 8 Royal Navy ships, 25 fast jets and an aviation task force of Apache, Chinook and Wildcat helicopters. They will take part in large-scale, multi-country exercises, as well as carrying out air policing and cold weather training.

The carrier group, including HMS Queen Elizabeth, will return early next year to lead the UK’s contribution to the first phase of NATO’s most ambitious military drill since the Cold War, Exercise Steadfast Defender.

The operation will span almost six months and see 16,000 UK soldiers deploy to Estonia and Norway.

The deployments come as the Prime Minister deepened the UK’s relationship with Sweden today, signing a strategic partnership with the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

The partnership will expand cooperation on security and defence, innovation, science, energy, trade and investment. It builds on the UK’s security assurances to Sweden, which were signed last year ahead of the country’s accession to NATO.

The Prime Minister also agreed a new ambitious Green Industrial Partnership with Norway, which will seek to drive both countries’ transition to more clean and secure energy by enabling deeper cooperation on areas like offshore wind, low emission transport and critical minerals.

The agreement will benefit supply chains and support skills in low carbon sectors, as well as improving the security and resilience of critical infrastructure.

[Tempest414]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-a ... -to-sweden

The Prime Minister outlined how accelerating defence industrial cooperation within Europe and across the Atlantic was vital to ensuring nations maintain a technological advantage over Russia and protect partners from Russian attacks for generations to come.

As part of that ambition, the Prime Minister also set out how the UK will accelerate its military cooperation in the region to help detect, deter and defuse traditional and hybrid threats.

That acceleration will include sending more than 20,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and air men and women to the region next year, alongside 8 Royal Navy ships, 25 fast jets and an aviation task force of Apache, Chinook and Wildcat helicopters. They will take part in large-scale, multi-country exercises, as well as carrying out air policing and cold weather training.

The carrier group, including HMS Queen Elizabeth, will return early next year to lead the UK’s contribution to the first phase of NATO’s most ambitious military drill since the Cold War, Exercise Steadfast Defender.

The operation will span almost six months and see 16,000 UK soldiers deploy to Estonia and Norway.

The deployments come as the Prime Minister deepened the UK’s relationship with Sweden today, signing a strategic partnership with the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

The partnership will expand cooperation on security and defence, innovation, science, energy, trade and investment. It builds on the UK’s security assurances to Sweden, which were signed last year ahead of the country’s accession to NATO.

The Prime Minister also agreed a new ambitious Green Industrial Partnership with Norway, which will seek to drive both countries’ transition to more clean and secure energy by enabling deeper cooperation on areas like offshore wind, low emission transport and critical minerals.

The agreement will benefit supply chains and support skills in low carbon sectors, as well as improving the security and resilience of critical infrastructure.

This all comes in a election year how F-in predicable that he would send 25% of our fast jets and 25% of our active army in fact the twat is sending 25% or UK active units on a willy waving Ex to help his election lets just hope he remembers to send some extra cash to cover this

[topman]

I don't understand, what has this got to do with an election?

[new guy]

I don't understand, what has this got to do with an election?

politics is everywhere.

[Jdam]

Nice bit of accounting there, over the course of 6 months we will deploy 16k of people, just not all at once