Permit me, our dear readers of this column, to present to you a segment of the questioning of Prime Minister Boris Johnson by the Liaison Committee, which includes all the chairs from the House of Commons Select Committee, chaired by Sir Bernard Jenkin, MP. Lieutenant Colonel The Right Honourable Tobias Ellwood MP was one of the members who questioned PM Boris Johnson. This event took place on Wednesday July 6, 2022 in The Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House. The full meeting can be found on Youtube under the heading “Boris Johnson questioned by Parliament Select Committee”.
Tobias Ellwood: Prime Minister, good to see you again. We’re establishing that the world is getting more dangerous. The next decade is going to be very bumpy, indeed. I want to focus on UK defense capabilities. Despite the injection of 24 billion pounds, the integrated view has seen a tilt towards cyber in space, which is welcome, but it’s come at the expense of cuts to all three conventional services. At your last appearance here, prior to the Russian invasion, you boldly stated that tanks are not the answer to the defense of Ukraine, but the old concepts of tank battles on the European land mass are over. Prime Minister, do you now recognize the value of tanks as part of our landfall warfare mix and plans to reduce our tank numbers now need to be reviewed?
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Thank you very much, Tobias. I think that when you, certainly, I think that it’s important for the UK to have tanks, but I think for the Ukrainian purposes, even more valuable were anti-tank weapons, and if you look at what really changed the course of the first few weeks of the war, it was the javelins, it was the NLAWs in particular and the javelins that were used to destroy the tanks and ready to make Russia’s tank warfare extremely difficult, and you’ll have seen exactly what happened.
Tobias Ellwood: That’s understood, and I don’t disagree with that. What I’m trying to stress at is that the defense budget, it will actually go down by a billion pounds in 2023, 24, according to library figures, and you mentioned NLAWs. We have stockpiles which are being depleted. We’re short of deep fire capabilities, rocket artillery, air defense, and indeed hypersonics as well. This is where the character of conflict is moving. We need to invest more, including in those tanks which we’re cutting by a third and indeed our warrior-fighting vehicles. We have no capability to do dismounted infantry, because we’re actually cutting the entire warrior fleet. Could I beg with the Prime Minister to reconsider the army numbers. If there’s one thing he could take away from here with his new chancellor to look at securing 40 million pounds required to reverse the cuts in our army manpower.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Thanks. I just want to stress that we value immensely the armed forces in the sensory value, though the numbers of troops, if you include the reserves, there are in fact over a hundred thousand. So, seventy three thousand in the regular army across thirty thousand reserves, but I think it’s also very important that, you know, I heard all the points that people like General Sanders have made, but the important thing is to have the best possible equipment for those troops, and that’s what we’re doing.
Tobias Ellwood: Well, let’s look at that equipment, because in the army, I just said, we’re losing a third of our tanks. We’re losing our warrior fighting vehicles, we’re decimating our tracked land warfare capability. In the RAF, we’re down from 36 squadrons during the Gulf War to just six today; we’re losing all our Hercules heavy lift. We’re losing, uh, we only have 48 of the 138 F-35s, we’re losing two of the E-7 I-star aircraft that are so critical to work with the F-35s and in the navy, in 1990s, during the Cold War, we had 13 destroyers, 35 frigates, and we’re down to just 18. We are hollowing out all our armed services at the very time that, as you mentioned, the head of the army is saying we face a 1937 moment. Is this the time to be investing our own forces, not depleting capability?
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Well, I agree with that, but that’s why we’re spending 24 billion over the next four years. It’s the biggest increase since the end of the Cold War, and I think that money is being wisely spent. You talk about it already….
Tobias Ellwood: It’s gone.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Well, it’s over the next four years….
Tobias Ellwood: It’s gone in to invest, into paying for the replacement of the vanguard submarines. The money didn’t even hit the signs. That’s where it was needed to make sure that program allowed us to continue our nuclear deterrent.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: I understand, but you know we’re also committed, as I said earlier, on to a number of massive projects. You mentioned heavy lift aircraft. Actually, if you look at what the UK has, it’s—I think we’re still by far the biggest possessor of heavy-lift aircraft in Europe. On ships, we’ve got a very active shipbuilding program, you know. Tobias, I take your point about tanks again humbly and sincerely, and you know I will take it away and look at the armament personnel carries the armor vehicles. They have been useful to the Ukrainians, particularly the armored vehicles, but you know the committee should be in no doubt. We’re investing massively in that.
Tobias Ellwood: I hear what you say, but I mean you’re a classicist. You know your responses to date, makes me feel like Homer’s Cassandra. I say to you, we must prepare for the storm clouds that are coming over the horizon, and you don’t seem to believe me. I say we can’t afford these troop cuts in our army numbers, but you don’t believe me, and I say that we need to reverse these cuts in our land warfare systems, our ships and indeed our planes, and you still don’t believe me, and there is a change afoot. We are at a turning point in our history, and we need to prepare for what is coming over the horizon. Britain must play its path. There is a gap in leadership in Europe, and I want Britain to assume that role. We can only do so if we prepare today and advance our defense.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Do you think you should have been open to listen to what the other countries say about the UK contribution and the indispensability of UK armed forces, our contribution to NATO’s new force model, the role that we play. We’re the second biggest spender in NATO, but a massive contributor to all the joint operations, and I think Jen Stoltenberg, the Secretary General, would testify that, and when you say I don’t believe, that’s not true. I do understand the need for more spending on defense. It has to be balanced against other priorities, and it is going up.
Tobias Ellwood: Then reverse those troop numbers.
Sir Bernard Jenkin: Can I just press one matter related to this? We have given away our training stocks of NLAWs, of MLRS and other munitions to the Ukrainians. What are we doing to galvanize the supply chain back to a wartime capability that will provide resilience of stocks? Because at the moment, we simply can’t replace those stocks.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Well, thank you, but actually if you look at what’s happening in Belfast, they’re making a lot of NLAWs.
Sir Bernard Jenkins: They’re not replacing as fast as we’re giving them away. That is a fact.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: That is true. They take a while to make, but we’re replacing them.
Sir Bernard Jenkins: But I mean, this goes to the heart of the integrated review, which was very good on analysis and requirement, but there are only two pages on the implementation. What are we going to do to make sure that we implement the defense integrated review so that we actually have the capability ready when we need it? Because at the moment we don’t.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: We’re supplying a huge amount of capability. I accept the view that we need to modernize and do more and more NLAWs, certainly rolling off the production line at Thales in Belfast.
NOTE:
• NLAWs – Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon
• MLRS – Multiple Rocket Launcher
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July 9, 2022
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CLINTON CANUL LUNA’S NOTE:
I would like to express my gratitude for the support provided by Paul regarding the article published in the online Amandala dated Wednesday, July 6, 2022 under the heading “My View: Russia is not to blame!”