The Peace Party realised again recently what an uphill struggle it has in convincing the electorate to vote for the Party that stands only for non-violent ways to ensure Britain’s safety and security.
The writer refers to the outspoken comments on Monday 11th February by the government minister whose responsibilities include advising Parliament on whether the country needs to go to war to protect its land and peoples.
Commenting on the minister’s statement, Guardian columnist, Simon Jenkins, wrote, “The defence secretary’s brain has gone absent without leave. Gavin Williamson said in a speech today that he intends to send his new aircraft carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, round the world to frighten China. He will equip it with a squadron of F-35 fighter jets, purchased from America. In addition he wants to build two British military bases, one in Asia and the other ‘in the Caribbean’. They are to ‘strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality and increase our mass’.”
The defence secretary went on to say that “’We’ must be ready to deploy ‘hard power’ against those who ‘flout international law’,” and then to ask, “What on earth is Williamson talking about? … The Queen Elizabeth cannot sail until 2021. It has no business whatsoever in the South China Sea, where such a vast and unwieldy ship would be a sitting target. The Chinese could sink it in an hour. As for new military bases in the Caribbean and east of Suez, they would cost billions and be an invitation to terrorists.”
Simon Jenkins commented further, “The defence secretary should have the guts to cancel the useless Trident missiles and their vulnerable submarines, mothball the carriers and cancel the frigates. They are pure showing off, as pointless as the American jet fighters, almost all of which remain undelivered. Such weapons have no more to do with protecting modern Britain than do muskets, bows and arrows and changing the guard.”