Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
Herefordshire is best avoided by those Labour MPs who fear that the countryside – with its pubs, beer and black Labradors – is less Welsh borders than it is borderline fascist.
As the heart of Britain’s Special Forces, the county should also be avoided by supporters of human rights law, which enables the spurious prosecution of soldiers for actions on operations, some of which happened decades earlier.
On Tuesday, Andy Burnham’s speech to Conference was long on Labour Party-pleasing, but decidedly short on foreign policy or national security. Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine and Washington’s unfinished business in Iran, the PM failed to mention defence, apart from a one-sentence after-thought reference to NATO. The Chancellor was equally reticent.
If both Numbers 10 and 11 suddenly have cold feet about splashing the country’s limited cash on warfare instead of welfare, perhaps they should talk to Dominic Cummings.
The former No.10 advisor was a speaker at last weekend’s Hereford Military History Festival.
For a gathering focusing on the past, it highlighted today’s defence dilemmas.
A compelling presence, Cummings attacked the Ministry of Defence, alleging Potemkin talk and Potemkin budgets. “If anyone in private business did accounting the way the MoD does accounting, they’d be in jail.”
In short, until procurement processes are reformed, it is pointless to throw away taxpayers’ money to reach an arbitrary spending target. For a PM who stated that “national security cannot come at the expense of social security”, ironically Boris Johnson’s consigliere offers an escape route from his predecessor’s 5 per cent GDP pledge made to NATO.
Labour’s benefits-not-ballistic-missiles priorities are already being realised, not least with a £30 million cut to Army training. This is a “recipe for disaster” says Lt. General Benoît Desmeuelles, France’s 1st Army Corps commander. George Simm, former Regimental Sergeant Major, 22 Special Air Service, reminded his Hereford audience of the military maxim, “train hard, fight easy”.
A sculpture and stained-glass window commemorate the SAS in Hereford Cathedral. Reflecting the legendary regiment’s deep local roots, it was standing room only for Saturday’s debate on its past, present and future.
Chaired by the Telegraph’s Allison Pearson, Simm was joined by fellow SAS veterans Bob Parr, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton and Ed Butler, President of the SAS Regimental Association.
The SAS has been the blueprint for Special Forces across the West, including the United States. Britain’s allies are alarmed by the threat to the regiment, thanks to the lawfare being waged against serving soldiers and veterans.
The current anti-SF attack has two main fronts: the Afghanistan Inquiry and legislation relating to the Northern Ireland Troubles.
On operations, Britain’s service personnel have always been legally constrained, including by the Law of Armed Conflict and International Humanitarian Law. When the European Convention on Human Rights was incorporated into British law in 1998, another dimension was added.
This is now putting a legal target on the back of serving soldiers and veterans, but particularly Special Forces’ personnel who can operate at the more “kinetic” end of the military spectrum.
Stopping Taliban bombmakers whose IEDs were killing and maiming hundreds of British soldiers in Helmand could have involved a US-style bombing raids with collateral civilian damage. Instead, small SAS teams were deployed at huge personal risk. Their success saved scores of lives.
Special Forces’ missions are signed off at the highest level, by the Defence Secretary, the Chief of the Defence Staff or the Prime Minister. Having authorised SF personnel to act, their reaction too often is silence should those personnel later be persecuted.
Almost 30 years after the Good Friday Agreement, which the SAS helped to deliver, some IRA supporters still refuse to accept that they were beaten. By relitigating the Troubles, the conflict continues by other means.
Saturday’s conclusions were stark: the contract between the soldier and the state is broken, ministers apparently prefer to side with Britain’s adversaries, and the threat of future criminal prosecution is affecting SAS recruitment. The SAS Regimental Association could soon be taking legal action against the government.
Amid the harm ministers are choosing to inflict on Britain’s Special Forces, a former civilian worker in the regimental HQ’s cookhouse and stores outside Hereford has unwittingly provided some light relief. An Afghan Inquiry witness, she complained that the workplace atmosphere was “coarse and feral” and, interviewed separately, grumbled that the men would “swear all the time”, unlike in M&S.
With the government’s disengagement from defence, ministers would probably back the slogan: “This is not just Special Forces, this is M&S Special Forces”. Or, in other words, Special Forces that are non-sweary, health and safety compliant, and with all the martial valour of Health Secretary Yvette Cooper.
The Special Forces are a world-class instrument of the state. Personnel act on behalf of Britain – and of all of us. They deserve our gratitude and support.