BRITAIN

Intro: The Ministry of Defence’s “diversity networks”, some 93 in total, are rightly coming under attack

COLONEL Tim Collins OBE, the former Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, wrote publicly this week and rightly attacked the multitude of woke policies that have been implemented by the Ministry of Defence in Britain.

Of all the ceremonies that bind the British people to their past, he says, none is more emotive than Remembrance Sunday.

Powerful and enduring, it pays tribute to the millions of ordinary people who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Some on the Left of politics, who fail to understand that our Armed Forces protect us all, have long sought to do away with this annual and time-honoured communion with the nation’s fallen and the poppies that symbolise our attachment to it. For them, the ceremony is seen as a jingoistic sham.

Not surprisingly, and with thankful regard, our men and women in uniform still enjoy widespread support, so any such move by the Left has always been impossible to implement.

Now, however, there is a new attempt to undermine the central role of the military – and, shockingly, it has come from within our Armed Forces.

According to a British Army document that has come to light, entitled “Policy, Guidance and Instructions on Inclusive Behaviours”, soldiers have been ordered to avoid “religious elements” in Remembrance Day services. The document states, “Acts of Remembrance should be agnostic.” Unorthodox and bizarre to say the least.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, recently appointed to Defence, who is Jewish, is said to be “furious”. It has been reported that he is not offended one bit by Christian remembrance services and believes it’s at the core of our nation’s history and who we are.

Mr Shapps is right, of course, to appreciate the central importance of Remembrance Day, but it is by no means the only target the woke warriors have in their sights.

The current fad for “diversity” and “inclusion” is one of the most effective weapons in the hands of those who would seek to undermine our military.

This week, it emerged that defence spending on personnel devoted to these causes has doubled to nearly £2 million over the past five years.

These modern virtues – which may have their own merits in certain settings – have an emphasis which is actively inhibiting the Armed Forces from recruiting the very people who have traditionally filled its ranks: white males.

The phenomenon first came to light in 2022 when it was revealed that the RAF’s head of recruitment had quit in protest at what was deemed to be an “unlawful” order to put female and ethic minority candidates onto training courses ahead of white men.

The top brass evidently felt that it was more important to increase the percentage of Air Force personnel who were women or from non-white backgrounds than to select the candidates best suited to carry out their duties.

Currently, white male servicemen are increasingly being made to feel deeply unwelcome by being drilled in “unconscious bias” on courses which convey the unspoken message that they are inherently racist, sexist, and homophobic.

Sure, nobody wants any of our Armed Forces personnel to be sexists, racists, or bigots. But when national security is at stake, pandering to the woke brigade should not be the priority.

To his credit, Shapps has again bemoaned this practice – seen in all three services – as an attempted takeover by activists with “a political agenda”.

The Defence Secretary has held crisis talks with military chiefs to address the “extremist culture” that promotes diversity and inclusion at the expense of national security.

And, perversely, there is already evidence that this approach is having a damaging and entirely counterproductive effect on recruitment.

Despite the fact the Army has been cut from 100,000 soldiers in 2010 to a planned complement of 73,000 today, it is troubling that it has been unable to find enough recruits to meet even this diminished total.

Worse still, so many of our service personnel are not fit for duty because of injury or other issues that the overall muster at any one time is little more than 50 per cent of the desired figure. This means that we no longer have an Army capable of protecting the nation.

The same is also true of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. The £3 billion aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales has finally departed for a major NATO exercise this week, but only after an embarrassing last-minute delay. Its sister ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is still in port with a broken propeller shaft.

The UK is also decommissioning ships, even ones recently refurbished at great expense, because too many servicemen and women are leaving. Scandalous, yes. But more than that, it is dangerous.

If the primary role of the military is to provide an inclusive experience for people of different genders and religious persuasions, then it neglects its duty of care to the nation.

If it devotes more energy like this by ensuring soldiers, sailors, and airmen/women, feel more comfortable about expressing their sexuality than defending our shores, it is simply not fit for purpose.

The MoD’s 93 diversity networks, includes seven concerned with LGBT issues, 14 with race, and ten with gender. What will these avail us in the event of a deadly attack? Easy answer. Not a jot.

Tolerance is one of the great strengths of British society – and, of course, like Colonel Collins, many of us will be proud that women, gay people, and people from ethnic minorities, serve their country in uniform.

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other despotisms are all intolerant. But this great British value must not be used against us.

In an effort to increase ethnic minority representation in its officer corps, last March the British Army issued a “Race Action Plan”.

The ends may have been reasonable, but the means were not. The document advocated reducing the level of vetting for officers from Commonwealth countries.

Security-clearance vetting, it claimed, was “the primary barrier to non-UK personnel gaining a commission in the Army”. Military rigour has therefore been forced to give way.

Colonel Collins has first-hand experience of where that can lead. In March 2003, at the start of the Iraq invasion, he was with his men in Kuwait.

A series of explosions shook the air, as an Islamist renegade soldier in the U.S. 101st Airborne Division threw four hand grenades into tents where his comrades were sleeping, and then opened fire with a rifle. Two men were killed, and 14 others seriously injured.

Traitors within the ranks who evade security checks are an ever-present danger.

In the last few days in Mogadishu, Somalia, four soldiers from the United Arab Emirates, and one from Bahrain, were killed – murdered by the very recruits whom they were training to protect civilians from terrorist attacks.

How had members of the Al-Shabab terror group managed to infiltrate the camp? Because the level of security checks had been reduced – exactly what is being proposed for our own Armed Forces. Inclusivity should never trump commonsense.

Overwhelmingly, the young people who are eager to enlist and serve in His Majesty’s forces are white and male. Some will be from backgrounds where a life in the Forces is a family tradition.

Others have grown up in an education system that penalises them for being white, male, and working-class. They want the chance and opportunity of adventure, comradeship, and travel.

Britain needs these men. If we reject them because they fail to fit the military’s vision of inclusion and diversity, we will soon have no protection against our enemies.