Britannia Radio

NEWS RELEASE Saturday 3 October 2008: Release time immediate     CAMERON URGED TO HOLD FIRM AGAINST PRESSURE TO CUT DEFENCE    The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) is calling on David Cameron to give a firm guarantee that funding for the Armed Forces would be safeguarded from any public spending cuts under a Conservative government.   With Conservatives gathering in Manchester for their annual conference, the UKNDA is urging Mr Cameron and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne to resist pressure to cut the defence budget, and to consider increasing the share of government funding allocated to defence. This is vital, says the UKNDA, to enable the Armed Forces to “catch up” after two decades of “chronic underfunding”.   Leading members of the UKNDA, including the military historian Prof. Richard Holmes, Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, author and journalist Andrew Roberts, economist Dr. Irwin Stelzer, former head of UK defence exports Tony Edwards, and the former UN commander in Bosnia, Col. Bob Stewart, are among those who will be speaking at the UKNDA’s conference fringe-meeting and calling for David Cameron and his team to give a categorical assurance that a Tory government would not cut defence. The UKNDA event – to be held at the Exchange Auditorium, Manchester Central, at 12.30pm on Monday October 5 – is part of an intensive campaign to persuade the Conservatives to recognise the many and growing threats to national security, and the urgent need to restore “defence of the realm” to its rightful place as “the first priority of government”. Defence funding, says the UKNDA, should be “threat-driven not Treasury-driven”. In a UKNDA policy paper to be published on Monday, Azeem Ibrahim – Research Fellow at the International Security Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University – writes: “Any politician who believes that the Government’s first duty is defence of the realm must reverse the present dangerous downward drift in defence funding. If they do not, then whoever is elected will be remembered as the Prime Minister who let Britain ’s military prowess fatally wither, and recklessly risked national security.”   UKNDA President Winston S. Churchill is spearheading the campaign to convince the Conservatives of the importance of investing in defence. In an echo of the campaign that his grandfather Sir Winston Churchill waged in the 1930s, the UKNDA’s President is warning of the many and growing threats that Britain now faces, and is appealing to the present-day Conservative Party leadership for a clear and unequivocal commitment to national defence.   He says: “Now, almost eight decades after Sir Winston sought to alert the Nation to the folly of disarmament, his appeal for strong national defence resonates once again. Today’s world is an extremely dangerous place. Just think what could happen if America, Britain and our NATO allies fail to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, if nuclear-armed Pakistan were to fall to the Taliban, if the Islamist regime in Iran were to be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, or if a resurgent nationalist Russia decided to repeat its foray into Georgia, or perhaps even into Ukraine…  We need to give our Army, Navy and Air Force the resources they need to provide Britain with strong, effective, efficient defence, capable of meeting the many foreseen and unforeseen challenges that lie ahead.”   -ENDS     Editor’s Notes: The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) has been formed to campaign for “sufficient, appropriate and fully-funded Armed Forces”. Patrons of the UKNDA include three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff – Lords Guthrie, Craig and Boyce. Please see www.uknda.org and www.supportourarmedforces.org.uk