The Royal Navy aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth which will be visiting Palma later this month, forms a key party of Britain´s push for international trade in the post-Brexit era. Boris Johnson´s government want to use the carrier as a floating trade mission and some business exhibitions and seminars have already take place on board.
This new role marks a change in fortunes for the aircraft carrier which was almost cancelled by the British government on numerous occasions. It was former Prime Minister Tony Blair who first ordered the Queen Elizabeth, following the second Gulf war. He believed that Britain needed to have a “big carrier” Navy. It was Prime Minister David Cameron who wanted to scrap the Queen Elizabeth during the credit crunch.
But he was unable to do so because the government would have had to pay enormous penalties to the builders so it was cheap to keep it rather than scrap it. Cameron later warmed to the ship and he had a scale model of the Queen Elizabeth in his office. He also announced that the carrier´s sister ship, Prince of Wales, would also be built and would enter service.
Boris Johnson has been aboard the Queen Elizabeth on numerous occasions. She will remain in Royal Navy service for at least 50 years. Her visit to Palma comes at the end of long deployment to the Far East which has involved numerous exercises with allied nations. This will be her first visit to Palma and hopefully not the last.