According to the UK Independence Party website UKIP will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election: 1. To defend our national interests, maintain the NATO alliance, support our traditional partners. To disentangle our forces from the EU To keep our independence by retaining – always – ultimate command […]
Continue Reading UKIP Policies : Defence
Everything on that list is positive in my opinion, but the navy enlargement doesn’t go far enough. We should have at least five carriers of equivalent capability to the Nimitz class.
2: “To keep defence costs down by smarter defence procurement, and with more involvement of British industry wherever possible.”
These aims are mutually exclusive – British industry is no longer capable of competing in terms of equipment cost and capability. Frequently contracts are palmed off to BAe Systems because they are “British” despite the fact that what we get out the other end tends to be expensive and not very good – the Nimrod report being a recent example. You can buy better equipment for less by looking abroad, and if you’re interested in delivering value for money and equipment that works to the forces you shouldn’t adopt a protectionist stance.
6. “To restore many traditional regiments”
This is posturing – it will cost money (where money has since been saved) and not create any real capability increase. Cash should be spent on something more useful than reprinting stationery and making new cap badges.
7. “restoration of Crown immunity” and “an offence of treason for those UK citizens who seriously attack serving personnel”
Firstly, Crown immunity was never a good thing because it gave people the right to operate outside the law with impunity. Being a serving member of the armed forces is not an excuse to ignore the law. The offence of treason sounds ill-thought out: Firstly treason should, by definition, amount to something that seriously risks the existence of the state such as blowing up the Commons. Harming one officer doesn’t really have the same effect. Secondly, in cases of murder or serious assault, why do we need a new criminal law to prosecute someone depending on what the victim’s job was? The offender may not have even been aware of the victim’s job at the time.
8. “To withdraw our forces from Iraq, in good order, at an early date.”
Erm, already done
10. “To retain and increase Army and Territorial Army personnel by pay, free medical and dental care”
This would certainly have a positive impact but there are wider issues behind people’s decision to leave the armed forces or not join in the first place. Giving staff the opportunity to spend more time with their families and fewer relocations would do more to keep people in the military than a pay rise of a few hundred/thousand pounds a year. This is where increasing the the total strength becomes an advantage as per their point #3.
All in all, these policies will prove to be extremely expensive and will have to come at the expense of other government programmes. This could be more justified if it were 1937, but at present it seems like a huge scaling-up of forces to counter an uncertain threat. What is the strategy and point to this huge increase in spending? Why 30 DD/FFG class ships and only 12 submarines – why not change the balance towards submarines? What was right for 2001 may not be the right thing for the future and this policy seems to lack any kind of forward looking to what we may need in the future. “Bring back 2001” is a fairly short-sighted approach to fleet/force planning.
View Comment
Some good points but this policy requires serious rethinking to make it a viable proposition
Overall some of this seems very inspiring, however the heavy undertones of offering the ridiculous or the unbelievable suggests that this policy hasn’t been well thought out. As such it will not gain the voters it is aimed at.
The increase in spending across the board is a good idea, while people harp on about unknown threats there is a reality that the world is more dangerous than many think it is. Terrorism is a threat but not the one we should be focusing on to the exclusion of all else. Britain is a trading nation, with most of that done by sea (sea is the best and most efficient way to do mass trade before anyone suggests air power) and piracy, drug smuggling, smuggling and the like are all very real issues prevalent throughout the world. Add to the fact that several world navies are now close to rivalling Britain’s position as the 2nd/3rd most influential military power and you can see why our spending is not enough. The cuts and infighting over spending is another sign of this.
As to people saying about there being no need for 30 escort ships, this is something that we are in dire need of. With the procurement (potentially) of 2 aircraft carriers and the 2nd most powerful amphibious fleet in the world it is laughable that we don’t have the escorts to properly defend it, especially when you add in the fact that piracy is something on the rise, terrorism/piracy in the gulf (where our oil comes from) is a major problem and drugs running and standard smuggling are also real but ignored problems. For a trading country all these issues can be reduced to an extent by a strong escort fleet.
So while there are things I like in here, there are definitely problems and this is just a red herring to get voters…. I think.
View Comment
I agree that we need to substantially increase our defence spending and i would be happy to spend every ‘ spare’ penny we have on keeping the country safe.I think we need to focus on requiring submarines and helicopter carriers over and above anything else. Aircraft carriers in the modern world are still valid but are a huge target in the open sea with missile and sub technological advances, so the more sub-hunting helicopters we have the better.I’m sure the RN would simply love 2 or more HMS Ocean type crafts to protect and compliment our navy more than they would extra expensive to build,expensive to operate and protect aircraft carriers.The policies laid out here to lead me to ask more questions and get me a little suspicious that they lack thorough examinination on what’s best for our security how these aims can be achieved.I also feel it is important to have our emphasis on defending as opposed to attacking.
View Comment
Yes I must agree that we to up our defence to meets the needs of today and you would get my support and all the UK.
I note your point on the of good strong agreements which bine us a nation, but to suceed in this must decentreise Westminister giving the nations of the UK and include the Isle of Man full internal governing, reduce the ammount of MPs to 24 for each nation of the UK/Britain who work into the their nation country and introduce chief ministers of each region to meet at Westminster and only have a full each quarter. The house Lords needs be reduced to 6 members from each region and two from the Isle of Man being the Lt Governor & chief minister of MLC and deal only with legistration and EC policies agreements.Pull of the EU and re-enter under new terms for the UK that does enforce bad policy agreements upon the UK.
View Comment
Much of defence procurement gets ruined by officials civil servants becoming too involoved, changes to projects while underway with reports on top of reports for yet more reports. British industry was competitive and can be again. Shipbuilding will be one of the main areas, because of the labour years, we saw not many ships built and an unbalanced program due to the government destroying the Navy, many yards had not built ships for sometime. With warship orders, no conditions were given to invest these some of these sums of money into really good effecient production equipment, indeed many of our yards look like they are from the 30s, and that’s not good enough. Labour rates are very competitive, with only Romania being cheaper in Europe, and that’s no reason to build ships there. In Japan they are far more expensive and even South Korea is not far behind. But hourly rates is a different thing, the production in Britain needs to be addressed, once it has, there we will see big changes including some game changing technology in which Countries that have a little higher labour rates benefit more so. In fact we should be looking to export more to the world rather than importing. BAE as one contractor is a problem. For example, they build the Darings ships and probably dictate over the real expensive equipment, like electronics and other systems (a hull is about 1 third the overral price). If we had another good effecient yard, say Pallion back in building ships and A&P Tyne, with a re-built modern Swan Hunters and they worked together as a balance to BAE, would this not keep BAE on their toes? UKIP’s policies make sence, and to poo poo them is to do nothing, and carryon as we are, and that is not exceptable.
defence