Our children will be conscripted into a Euro army run by unelected bureaucrats controlled by lobbyists.

[bkgirl]

So here's the thing.
I can't stand Farage and his racist cronies. I do like Europe, I like the idea of a european union and us all working together . However unelected bureaucrats have more power than our MEP's so democratic - it certainly isn't. The EU definitely wants a Euro Army and controlled essentially bu these officials who we can't unelect is CRAZY. Our kids, boys and girls are likely to be conscripted to fight in wars for the benefit of the people who pay the lobbyists. It's like the biggest con in history. Our ancestors who fought for democracy would be furious.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36565036?SThisFB

And has been for a long time bkgirl.

When you sign up for a new class of warship or warplane it is a 25-35 year commitment, hence future intentions become apparent even if they don't entirely make sense in the present.

The military forces within the EU have been specialising for some time. Rather than having sovereign and therefore balanced forces capabilities in one navy are almost entirely omitted where another one prioritises them.

We have very few minesweepers, where the German navy has far too many for its own use.

We have bloated amphibious capabilities together with the Netherlands whilst these are almost absent elsewhere. The French even sold their new amphibious design to Russia rather than using it themselves.

Our tornados are bombers, the German ones almost entirely reconnaissance or electronic warfare variants.

We could have bought hercules transport aircraft from the US to replace our current ones, but instead decided to buy massively more expensive EU ones with a contract that included huge penalties should they be late. They are and were late but we didn't enforce the contract and even decided to accept far fewer of them for the same overall price.

Similar story with our destroyers. Instead of buying American missiles for a very reasonable price we decided to arm them with a very expensive European one. The American option would have allowed us an anti ballistic missile capability and commonality with our NATO ally. The price for picking European was halving the number of ships bought.

The pattern of accepting shoddy and over priced goods from Europe in preference to cheaper and effective ones, even ones we have already used for decades, from the US is very clear.

My guess would be that we have subsidised the European defence industries in a backhand way to the tune of £50 billion in the last couple of decades.

The EU wants to be a "sovereign power" and to "share" its power with us? I can see that going the same way as our financial contribution to Brussels. Some money comes back as a rebate (which isn't guaranteed in the future), some money comes back with instructions attached, and some of it we never see again. Do we want all aspects of the UK to be administered by the EU, and "shared" in an equivalent way? The phrase "pooled sovereignty" is disingenuous as the plan is clearly for the EU organisations to be sovereign, not individual countries, even if they do pretend they'll still be quaintly called "sovereign nations".

The plan is clear... Disassemble the British armed forces. Our RAF and Navy are already weak to non existent. Our armed forces are run on a shoe string with the 'we can't afford to do more than this' motto attached to everything.

Also, Trump gave a speech where he was clear that many countries in the EU are spending well below what they should be spending based on agreements. However if you look at spending as a whole it's above the agreed percentage. His message was loud and clear that as President he would support the UK as we are one of their staunch allies. The reason he said this is because of the EU armed forces issue. Basically we have an Army but no navy and no RAf left. Trump was saying he would back us up in those areas.

As much as I don't like Trump and hate to admit it, he is right. If we vote to exit I'm going to be forced to vote for him in the election here in the US.

Another mass of 'woooo - but it could happen' scaremongering.

In addition, we have Spinflight wanting to make the British and European defence industries extinct so we can be wholly reliant on buying US weapons and be subject to all their terms & conditions.

So much for independence.

Hugo, everything that Spin said is true - those things have already happened.

There have been several things where we could have bought 'off the shelf' from the USA, but we've been tied into European 'partnership' instead.
Typhoon & Hercules are both examples of this.

Much as I dislike the EU to the extent that I have voted out already by postal proxy, there is some reasoning behind buying European. The US has bankrolled NATO for decades and is getting pissed off with the European NATO nations (apart from the UK, and a few others) not meeting their defence commitments within NATO.

Should the US decide that it doesn't want to carry on funding NATO to the extent that it currently does (or at all), then interoperability at a European level (although still within NATO) is a good idea perhaps.

Afaik, the carriers were the skimmer admirals selling the RN silver for big toys, (and for work for G Brown's constituency) when the money should have gone to more SSNs (but then, there are only submarines and targets!)

Our armed forces are run on a shoe string with the 'we can't afford to do more than this' motto attached to everything. The motto is suck it up, get on with it, and HM Forces are past masters at doing more with less, as they have been doing for decades.

The idea behind the areas of expertise is to get bangs for your buck at a NATO level. Belgium for example, has excellent MCMV capabilities, and that is more use to NATO than it having frigates that it can't man or maintain. Belgium is part of the BeNeLux grouping and they pool and share resources. There is no point small navies stretching to do everything badly, when they could do a couple of things well and cooperate with others in a defence capacity. I think we do the same with the French on some things.

I note that no other European navies apart from us and the French have SSBNs...should they all start to do so?

As for 'we have no Navy left* Really? Who then employs my db, my dn, used to employ dh, and indeed employs many of my husband's colleagues? Who crews the submarines and ships?

Yes, there is a rumour again floating round the bazaars here in Brussels about the EU having its own Armed Forces, but just think...it would cost a lot of money to stand up Forces from the ground. NATO already does all this very effectively, and is bankrolled by Uncle Sam, meaning the European NATO nations aren't having to foot what is undoubtedly a very heavy bill. Would the taxpayers in the EU member states be prepared to fork out for this? Why duplicate what is already a very successful organisation that is proven to work? I really can't see many of the NATO nations that are also EU member states just calmly handing over control of their forces to the EU, especially Greece and the UK. I can't see France doing it either for that matter. I think an awful lot of people in HM Forces would resign as well...they work for her Maj, not Juncker.

The navy we have left is minimal compared to what it was 50 years ago. Yes they still employ people because they do still have a fleet. However that fleet is very small and it should be bigger given what is going on in the world.

It's smaller than it was 50 years ago, is a bit different to 'we have no Navy left' isn't it? You even admit we still have a fleet, which means there is a Navy.

I entirely agree it should be bigger, but given the current climate that is not going to happen, especially as the carriers were a trade off against other things.

I think the RN more than does its job, performing miracles where the tasking is concerned, and having had Afghanistan added into the mix as well. The RN has been working an an extremely high tempo for the last 30 years at least, and that shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

The fleet we have isn't near big enough. It's the same with the RAF. Chronic underfunding is going to bite us in the rear end soon.

You can say that until you are blue in the face. It is not going to alter any time soon.

I am a Navy brat (RN daughter, dil, wife, sister, aunt), and have been for all of my life to date, so all of my 50 years on the planet.

Chronic underfunding isn't going to bite us in the arse soon, it has been doing so for years already. HM Forces deal with it all the time, and have been doing so for decades. You are a little late to the party I'm afraid.

The problem is though that they have been dealing with it, so it has been at breaking point for some time - the actual point will come though.

The RAF is my area of experience so I can only comment on that, but the rate of personnel exiting early has reached massive proportions now. The aircraft engineers in particular have been haemorrhaging at an alarming rate.

No spares, not enough airframes to complete taskings, not enough personnel to cover all the extra that is demanded of them.

This has been happening for years and it's not a solution to say 'suck it up' any more.
There's only so much that can be sucked up.

Not to mention capability holidays..

Nice term, basically means we have no maritime patrol aircraft for instance.

The navy has been the hardest hit. All of the really serious cuts came at a time the navy was spending all of its cash on trident.

That was immediately followed by a Labour government which didn't build a single warship until the carriers, the first of which has only just completed.

We sold our diesel patrol submarines to the Canadians, mothballed half the fleet and had no plans for replacing the ageing hulls in the water. Our harriers were sold as spares to the Americans, despite then being relatively cheap to run.

Its rather convenient that we now have no ability to survey our fishing waters whilst as has been stated by others the vital well trained personnel leave in their droves.

When the generals and admirals are in post they say that everything is great, as soon as they retire they say the opposite.

Our proud naval tradition is clearly historically imperative. If a deliberate plan to emasculate our armed forces had been hatched in 1990 it wouldn't have looked much different to what has actually transpired.

The SSKs were laid up in 94 and sold in 98 iirc, as SSNs and SSBNs were considered more important, and the harriers were sold to the US quite some time later (after SDSR), so you can't really conflate the two issues.

We may have 'capability holidays' but being part of NATO means we can borrow from a fellow NATO nation where necessary.

As for personnel leaving in droves...many were made redundant rather than leave. The RN were ahead on this. I think the RN were up to third tranche when all the shit hit the fan about the Army's first tranche.

1SL Sir Mark Stanhope stood up to be counted, but had an interview without coffee fairly quickly afterwards.

I don't think we will get back to the days of the Spithead Review with the RN, and there was perhaps an argument for getting rid of the old and bold. Dh was surprised that he was a shortage category as he was coming up to retirement and wasn't seagoing any more.

If you don't want a conscription army I wouldn't let Gove get any more power. That sounds like the sort of thing he'd think was a wonderful idea.

Am talking from personal experience re engineers within the RAF leaving in droves.

Nothing to do with redundancy (which many, many applied for & were disappointed not to get it).
The Premature Voluntary Release (PVR) numbers of Trade Group 1 (Aircraft Engineers) is massive, from the lower ranks right through to the higher non-commissioned ranks.
The SNCO ranks leaving have left a marked experience & skills hole.
There is also a big shortage of engineering officers too.

The EU army is inevitable. A European defence union has been in the planning for 60 years and anyone who say it wont happen is either naive or lying. The plans for a restructuring of the EU military are being announced just after the referendum. The reason for postponing the plans is that it might persuade people to vote for Brexit.

Yes, remainers dismiss this as scaremongering. The thing is, if we vote to stay in, it will be too late to change our minds when the EU picks a fight. Our young men (my ds) will be conscripted to fight in a war over which we have no say.

That is a very real risk that I'm not taking.

Gove's future position has nothing to do with the referendum? Okay then. It's not like this referendum was anything to do with Tory infighting over Europe. Oh wait...

I don't want Juncker sending my children to war.
He would to get money back for a few of his banking chums that lobby him - in a heartbeat.

Ouriana, Merkel wants an army. So much so that she wouldnt conduct EU reform negotiations with Cameron until he had agreed to give his support.

I do not want to live and bring my children up in a militarised state run by Germany the EU.

The EU army is inevitable. Disagree
A European defence union has been in the planning for 60 years and anyone who say it wont happen is either naive or lying. It exists - it's called NATO, and it has a rather large HQ in Brussels. There is a very smart new NATO HQ that is being finished just across the Boulevard from the old one. Why would all the NATO nations (especially those that are also EU member states) contribute millions to building it, if they are planning to undermine NATO by having an EU military?

MangoMoon There is also a big shortage of engineering officers too. There is in the RN, but that could be because the seatime was getting ridiculous, and they could get better pay outside, particularly if they were Marine Engineers submariners and thus trained on reactors.

Dh was a Weapon Engineer submariner, and as an non sea going Cdr, should have been up to leave early, but he was classed as a shortage category, and so stayed in until he retired.

NATO has members who are not in the EU. How can you say NATO is a European defence union? Juncker wants an army comprising solely of EU members.

Why would all the NATO nations (especially those that are also EU member states) contribute millions to building it, if they are planning to undermine NATO by having an EU military? I have no idea, perhaps to lessen US influence following Germany/US disputes over Ukraine?

I don't see an EU army as a particular problem. We already join up with likeminded countries in wars, especially France, as our army is not enough of its own. In Iraq we only were able to defend one city (Basra) and in Afghanistan one province (Helmund?) in which the UK was not particularly successful. I believe we currently have no operational aircraft carriers??

If there was an issue I understand that the UK would not have to contribute to an EU army.

Brexit would bring economic problems for funding our own army, loss of standing in the world and a weaker EU. These could all be huge security concerns

Brexit