It is time for the British armed services to say No, we haven’t got the kit. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said that British troops could be deployed to Ukraine and even Greenland. The simple answer is that the British army is not prepared to even equipped to enter a war zone after years of underfunding and in some cases misspent funding. British service people should not be put in harms way without the necessary equipment. Surely, this was a lesson which was learnt in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Britain has one of the biggest defence budgets in the world but sadly the money is being badly spent on poor quality equipment. You can blame the politicians but the top brass also deserve plenty of criticism. Starmer has promised to raise defence spending but so far there is little in the pipeline. The British army is lacking in everything from artillery to drones and from armoured vehicles to a functioning rifle.
All this information is readily available so the politicians and the service chiefs should know better. Winston Churchill once said: “Give us the kit and we will finish the job.” These days it is a question of “give us some kit and we will start the job”. You can’t put British soldiers in the line of fire if they are not properly equipped.