Government priorities are ‘utter madness’ (From Bournemouth Echo)

Government priorities are ‘utter madness’

2:00pm Tuesday 23rd October 2012 in News

SOUTH Dorset MP and former British Army officer Richard Drax has blasted the government for ordering “shameful” military cuts.

The former soldier, who served nine years in the Coldstream Guards, told the House of Commons military logic had been abandoned during the drafting of the contentious defence spending review.

Mr Drax is one of a growing number of MPs backing calls for the government to reverse its decision to scrap the historic 2nd Regiment Royal Fusiliers.

Hundreds of former fusiliers defiantly marched on Whitehall on Thursday, the first time a military demonstration of this kind has taken place in the long history of the British Army.

Despite the threat of court martial, several serving soldiers and reservists are also thought to have taken part in the unprecedented protest.

During a House of Commons motion debate, calling for the regiment to be saved, Mr Drax said: “I am tired of selling out on integrity, honesty and the defence of our country. We have to wake up. If we do not, we betray our people and the regiments that are sadly under threat today.

“We have to face our responsibilities seriously, put politics to one side and look at the future of our country. Our country comes first, our careers come second.”

Mr Drax believes the government has got its priorities wrong on defence spending: “Throwing money at the Soviet-style bureaucracy that some people call the EU and at foreign aid to states that practise genocide is utter madness, at a time when we are cutting our armed services.

“The priority should be to defend our country and her people.”

Under current government strategy the British Army is set to shrink from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2020.