John Muxworthy: Together, we can rescue our troops and ensure the defence of the realm.

FOR the past 50 years and more, our Armed Forces have, year after year, been reduced in size and funding.

The Strategic Defence and Security Review completed in October last year was rushed through in unseemly haste and has again cut our forces in both personnel and material, thus reducing our defence capabilities significantly.

Notwithstanding the unexpected and sudden emergence of a steadily expanding Middle East crisis, the Government is declining to revisit and reverse the cuts.

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Never in the field of human conflict have so few been asked to do so much with so little.

We, the voting public, need to let our politicians know that there are votes in defence and remind them that defence of the realm is the first priority of any Government.

Working together as a team we can help save and support our Armed Forces, and with them ourselves, from the dangers and ever increasing threats that otherwise may well affect us all.

This is essentially the same appeal as that made by Sir Winston Churchill 80 years ago. History is repeating itself and we ignore the warnings at our peril.

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The UKNDA was created in June 2007 to campaign for sufficient, appropriate and fully funded armed forces that the nation needs to defend effectively this country, its people, their security and vital interests wherever they may be.

HMS Ark Royal, the Navy’s only strike carrier, was hastily withdrawn from service in December, at least three years earlier than planned. Sixty-plus Harrier aircraft were withdrawn from service in January, thus leaving the Fleet Air Arm without any fast jets.

Naval aviation expertise will be lost and very difficult to recreate. The first of two new large carriers will not be operational until at least 2018/19 or later – thus leaving the Royal Navy without fixed wing air cover for the next seven or eight years, and possibly much longer.

It is expected that the Royal Navy will be reduced by 5,000 personnel to a total of barely 29,000, lower than it has ever been in the last 100 years. For an island dependent entirely on the sea for our very existence, we are severely weakening our first line of defence.

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Once the Army completes its mission in Afghanistan its manpower may well be cut by 7,000 or more. The long delayed programme of replacing and modernising the Army’s combat and support vehicles has, in effect, been dropped.

But the real cut which looms is to the terms and conditions of the service men and women, in particular the officer corps.

Cuts to allowances, including the continuation of education allowance, will see large numbers of middle ranking and more senior officers vote with their feet to find stability and more financially rewarding employment in the civil sector; it is this that the civil service and politicians do not understand.

There has long existed, from both the civil service and politicians of the left, a culture of jealousy towards the Armed Forces, their status in society and their approval by the public. The civil service, it could be argued, fail to appreciate the sacrifice of the Armed Forces overseas, seeing only the internal politics of life within the Ministry of Defence, which they regard as their territory.

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Politicians of the left have long hated the regimental system and the Armed Forces ethos which they do not understand and have consistently failed to penetrate, much less control. The watering down of the regimental system under the last administration did huge damage to the method by which this nation raises and sustains its armies and has reduced the old regional affiliations to a mere thread. That was the intent, no money was saved and the exercise was a net cost to the taxpayer.

The RAF will lose up to 5,000 personnel and in total drop below 33,000. Loss of capabilities and expertise will take years to regenerate – if ever – all because of mismanagement and vast expenditure on other cherished vote-winners.

It is at this point one must ask what do we have armed forces for? If we are to take the path selected by many European nations towards a “token military”, then we are on the right path – indeed we are already travelling fast down that path.

If, however, we are to maintain a military capable of acting independently and effectively whenever needed, then we are badly off course and heading for the rocks. There is a crucial need to review the political direction of the defence review. Even now the Government are trying to “save” even more money and so more equipment and personnel cuts are to be expected.

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The coalition Government seems to have turned its face away from “hard power” in favour of a policy of placating potential enemies with”‘soft power” – currying favour and ‘friends’ with large sums of money that, we submit, would be much better and effectively spent on Defence. We advocate “Speak softly, but carry a big stick” – not, as seems to be the current philosophy, “Shout loudly, but carry a small twig!”