Hal on the state of the UK’s Defences – Speech recorded 24th June 2024

The Speech

Transcript of the speech

“As someone who is serving in the Army Reserve, I believe I am better placed than many to speak of our nation’s defences.

After many decades of neglect, we have now reached a point where we simply cannot, meaningfully defend ourselves.

We no longer have the industrial base to equip our armed forces. For example, we currently have only two steel mills surviving. One is about to close and the other is expected to close before the next General Election. When this happens, we will no longer be making the basic material necessary to make so much as a bullet. Surely, this must make clear just how perilous our ability to defend ourselves has become.

And yet, at the same time, we have our politicians, once again aided and abetted by the media, greasing the path to slide our nation’s armed forces into a war with Russia. A war, if it were to happen, for which we have neither the industry, nor the treasure, nor the equipment, nor the manpower, to prosecute with any sensible, realistic chance of success.

So ill prepared are we for such a war, that any loving mother or father, could readily be forgiven, for imagining that such an undertaking was in reality a policy to butcher our bravest sons and daughters for some otherwise unseen, unknown, nefarious purpose.

Therefore I propose, that our Government give our nation the solemn undertaking that our armed forces are not to be committed in any foreign adventure unless and until it has put right our otherwise eviscerated defence industry, upon which our forces and our nation so deeply depend.”