There are rumours circulating around that the UK Conservative government is planning to cancel the Type 32 frigates Boris Johnson wanted to boost the extremely low Hull numbers for the Royal Navy fleet. UK Defence journal has an article describing how Rishi Sunak, UK Prime Minister and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, are planning on axing the Type 32 frigates in order to save money.
To be honest I am not surprised at all. This government has shown how little defence means to them, even though the first duty of government is to defend the country and its citizens. Everything else must come second. This Conservative government obviously did not get that important memo!
As usual they are trying to save pennies in the grand scheme of things, and in time when a war breaks out (which it probably will at some point), the Royal Navy, armed forces and country will be in serious trouble. The government of the day will then have to spend a hell of a lot more to make up for this mistake, costing us much more than the pennies that were saved. The same old story.
We saw this with our power and energy supplies when Putin invaded Ukraine. We saw this with the pandemic and PPE supplies, which we should have had in storage. We saw it again with the rough gas storage facility, which we closed and had to pay much more for our gas imports because of it. Will this government ever learn? It does not look like it unfortunately.
For anyone who cares about our country and its defence, we need to make our voices heard. Write to your MP telling them this cannot happen. If you are a Conservative member threaten to leave if they do this. We need to start forcing the government to do what we want not what they think is convenient.
If Truss had remained PM we would have had an increasing defence budget, and a 3% of gdp budget in time. This is something the country desperately needs with war in Europe happening as we speak, and an extremely hostile China threatening to invade Taiwan, which could trigger a full blown World War. Instead we have a government that is cutting the defence budget! It is completely absurd and utterly offensive.
We need to make our voices heard. We need to put defence at the top of the priority list, otherwise I fear we may all regret much sooner than we think.
