I HAVE just been to see the newly released film ‘Dunkirk’. It gave me pause for thought to reflect that in 1940 the French army, the largest standing army in Europe at that time together with the British Expeditionary Force stood ready to repel any German aggression. In the event the sudden Blitzkrieg onslaught by German military forces quickly overcame the allies in a few short days leading to the evacuation at Dunkirk. Nobody foresaw this turn of events or the speed with which it occurred.

Presently the health of Europe’s NATO forces is a cause for concern. Many members are not meeting NATO’s required spending commitment of three per cent of GDP on defence. Turkey’s membership, with Nato’s largest army in Western Europe, is in some doubt following the recent coup and its rapprochement with Russia. France’s top military officer, General Pierre De Villiers, recently resigned following President Macrons decision to cut 750 million Euro’s from the defence budget stating that he could no longer ‘guarantee the protection of France and the French people’. President Macron wanted to make defence cuts to help bring the deficit below the EU limit of 3%. So much for defence being a key national priority. Recent heads of our defence forces have warned about the ‘withered’ state of our armed forces saying that we could not defend ourselves against a sustained air attack from Russian forces. Oh, that these Defence Chiefs had not taken such a principled stand as General De Villiers has done when they had the chance?

In the last 12 months, the UK has had to rely on other NATO countries maritime surveillance aircraft (the Conservatives scrapped our Nimrods) to track 37 incursions by Russian submarines into our waters. Only recently on the day of the election it is believed that Russian state backed hackers infiltrated our energy network, a critical national infrastructure. It is feared that the hackers were harvesting information which could bring the supply network to its knees. I hardly need say what the consequences would or might be. In a previous age this might be considered an act of war. Supposedly the Cold War ended 30 years ago — try telling the Russians that. Russia has embarked, in recent years, on a multi-billion-pound modernisation of its armed forces producing some of the most up to date military equipment on the planet not to mention its cyberspace capabilities.

It is probably a fair assessment to say that our nations defences have never been in such a weakened state brought about by successive Labour and Conservative defence cutbacks. We have two aircraft carriers nearly ready for use with no aircraft to fly from them (the Conservatives sold our Harriers to the US) and no supporting Naval flotillas to support them (the Labour Party didn’t order them) – you couldn’t make it up.

It seems the post war generations have taken our security for granted and yet we live in a time when perhaps the world has never been more unstable. Historically Europe has depended on the UK and the USA for its security but now we all depend on the USA, a USA many Labour politicians and our left-wing media are determined to alienate.

No doubt any future conflict would be over in a few days if not hours to be fought with what we have at hand. This is an even more depressing prospect when you consider that the most feared weapon in our arsenal, our nuclear deterrent, would not be a consideration or used as a threat should a Labour Government under Jeremy Corbyn be in power

It strikes me that we could do with more of the likes of Lady Houston, a British patriot, who before WW2 financed and saved the aircraft project which ultimately became the Spitfire on whose fate this nation’s existence subsequently depended. Fearing for the country’s security she had on her yacht a banner in lights stating ‘Down with the Government. Wake up England’. I think it is time we all woke up to what is going on in the real world rather than obsessing about Brexit which is going to happen anyway. When it comes to commemorating the fallen at Passchendaele 100 years ago our politicians are front and centre but perhaps a better memorial would be to keep faith with their sacrifice and prevent anything like that happening again? Our national defence should be our top priority but one has to ask is the Dunkirk spirit still out there?

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