Sarah Ingham is author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
It’s action stations for militaries across Europe. War in Ukraine, a possible coup in Russia, speculation that the French Army was on standby to deal with the recent unrest, an imminent NATO summit…
Here in Britain, meanwhile, the Armed Forces are bogged down in a quota quagmire.
The Royal Air Force, guilty of discrimination; a reservist colonel forced into resignation allegedly for his views on transgenderism; a woman soldier seeking £2million in compensation for injuries.
Damaging headlines are being generated faster than a Typhoon FGR4. The Armed Forces are being defeated by the civilian obsession with Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
Last week Sir Richard Knighton, the new Air Chief Marshal, had to apologise unreservedly for unlawful discrimination after an inquiry found that women and ethnic minorities were being prioritised in training courses as part of a diversity drive instigated by his predecessor. Knighton acknowledged the controversy has affected Air Force morale.
ore reputational harm for the RAF can be expected when it reaches a legal settlement with the former Group Captain Elizabeth Nicholl, who resigned last year after protesting that the recruitment policy was unlawful. The spectre of a recruitment-linked email describing white male pilots as “useless” continues to haunt the Force.
The inquiry into what amounted to the RAF’s institutional racism and sexism was Army-led. Will the RAF be reciprocating in the case of Dr Kelvin Wright? A Colonel in the Reserves with 14 years’ service, including two tours of Afghanistan, his resignation allegedly follows a complaint about his perceived transphobia.
The combat medic shared a social media post which quoted writer Helen Joyce: “If women cannot stand in a public space and say ‘Men cannot be women’ then we do not have women’s rights at all.” Wright claims this led to the Army’s “LBGT champions” drawing up a seven-page dossier about his conduct and the opening of a formal investigation.
This Army investigation will be complicated by Wright’s resignation (which might be judged constructive dismissal) and could well mix military law, the Service Test, and civilian law, including the recent employment tribunal finding in favour of Maya Forstater. She won a landmark ruling last year that gender-critical views are protected under the 2010 Equality Act. Wright is being supported by the Free Speech Union, guaranteeing further civilian scrutiny.
(NB senior commanders: men cannot be women; it’s a biological impossibility. Bilko might identify as Boudicca, but he will always be Bilko.)
The Armed Forces’ tickbox pursuit of quotas has reached its inevitable conclusion: a compensation claim. Captain Megan Lloyd is reportedly seeking £2 million after her Army career ended following injuries sustained during a study involving physical research into women and ground combat roles.
Using Freedom of Information laws, in May the Mail on Sunday found that the Forces’ battle for more women in combat has foundered. In 2016, David Cameron lifted the ban on women serving in close combat roles: two years later all roles were open to women, including in the Royal Marines.
But despite Ministry of Defence trills about an “historic day”, today 50 women out of 18,000 infantry soldiers are women; none serves in the Royal Marines.
Despite the incentive of officially serving in the SAS or SBS, the number of women in the Armed Forces has remained fairly static: 8 per cent in 2000; 10 per cent in 2010 and 11.3 per cent today. Black and Minority Ethnic personnel in the regular Forces numbered 6.9 per cent in 2012; a decade later, 9.6 per cent.
Among the thicket of official statistics is the statement: “MOD publicises the importance placed on the Armed Forces being appropriately representative of the diverse society they exist to defend.”
We should start asking ourselves why we expect our Armed Forces to mirror civilian society. Should Service personnel be overweight or obese, unfit, risk averse, whiny, shirking from home, and on a permanent trigger, ready to take offence?
Forcing the Forces to fall into line with civilian-based dogma concerning gender, race and sexual-orientation quotas, as well as equality of opportunity in combat zones, has been a two-decades’ long waste of time.
Quitting quotas is not giving Armed Forces’ personnel a licence to be racist, sexist or homophobic. It would however free up the Forces to focus on their raison d’etre – the defence of the United Kingdom. Attention could perhaps also be turned to resolving welfare issues, including service family accommodation, highlighted by the recent Armed Forces’ Continuous Attitude Survey.
Last weekend Vice Admiral Phil Hally, the Chief of the Defence People, joined the Pride march along with LGBT+ veterans, serving personnel and defence civilians. Organisers Pride in London stated that those taking part would be marching for “love, protest and activism”.
It is unwise to embroil His Majesty’s Armed Forces in the culture wars. They are supposed to be above politics. Participation in a Pride march featuring protest and activism is not a politically neutral act. As Dr Wright observed in a different context: “It makes you wonder who is running the Army: the Chief of the Defence Staff, or Stonewall?”
The MoD implied that marching with Pride was expiation for “inexcusable behaviour” in banning LGBT+ people from serving in the Armed Forces until 2000. But back then, society was hetero-normative – to use today’s modish jargon – to the extent that, for example, singer George Michael sidestepped the issue of his sexual orientation. We can all take pride in how tolerant society has become.
Meanwhile last week Sir Patrick Sanders, Chief of the General Staff General, went on the record at RUSI’s Land Warfare Conference with his concerns about the Army’s equipment and strength. It was a reminder that war in Europe continues.