Fallon’s too late to veto Junker’s EU army
The UK should stop meddling in EU matters that are no business of ours, argues John Redwood MP.
I found Sir Michael's statement that he will continue to veto a European army all the time the UK remains in the EU perplexing. Now we are leaving I do not see it is any business of ours to veto what they are going to do when we leave. It just annoys the very countries we wish to be friends with as we depart.
I do wish we would just get on and leave and stop paying our contributions. If we rightly do not go to conferences like Bratislava why do we help pay the bills?
Nor do I understand how Sir Michael can veto something that already exists and the UK has accepted. The EU has established eighteen battle groups, each at battalion strength, with a rota so that any two of them can be deployed at any time by the European Council. As the EU's own website sets out "The battlegroup concept provides the EU with a specific tool in the range of rapid response capabilities."
The UK has played its part on the multinational rota to provide forces. None are currently deployed but they could be.
There is also already a Eurocorps, mainly French and German, stationed in Strasbourg with 1000 soldiers.
In parallel the EU does have naval forces in theatre today. Again the UK is signed up to this. Two of the 7 ships on Operation Sophia in the Mediterranean are UK vessels according to the EU website. There is a also a 4-6 vessel force off Somalia in Operation Atalanta which receives UK assistance.
Just as many of us pointed out in the referendum campaign, there is a European military capability and they do wish to grow a bigger and more active army. Some Remain spokesmen told us this was all nonsense. The conversation at Bratislava reminds us that there are already EU forces and they do wish to strengthen them and make them more active.
The UK should leave well alone and ask itself whether it wishes to carry on contributing after it has left. 4 non EU countries are involved in these forces at the moment. Perhaps our defence Secretary could give us some guidance on this more interesting issue, which will be his call along with the PM.
John Alan Redwood, Baron Redwood, is a British politician and academic who represented Wokingham in Berkshire as Conservative Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2024. Born on 15 June 1951, he served as Secretary of State for Wales under John Major and twice stood unsuccessfully for the Conservative Party leadership during the 1990s. Following his ministerial career, Redwood held positions in the Shadow Cabinets of William Hague and Michael Howard before spending his remaining parliamentary years as a backbencher. Prior to entering Parliament, he earned a doctorate at All Souls College, Oxford and served as Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit under Margaret Thatcher.
A veteran Eurosceptic described in 1993 as a pragmatic Thatcherite, Redwood has been particularly known for his work on economic policy and European matters. He co-chaired the Conservative Party's Policy Review Group on Economic Competitiveness until 2010 and serves as Chief Global Strategist of investment management company Charles Stanley & Co Ltd. Redwood was a prominent supporter of Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum and was a member of the pressure group Leave Means Leave. He writes commentary for Comment Central.
