Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said he’s ordering a review at his department after a report claimed the Army is planning to boost ethnic diversity in recruits by relaxing security requirements.
Mr. Shapps said there will be no “lowering of security clearance requirements” on his watch.
“I am ordering a review of diversity and inclusivity policy at the MoD,” the defence secretary said in a statement.
“We want people from all backgrounds to serve in our military but some policies appear to be more about a political agenda than practically improving the lives of our dedicated soldiers and military personnel.
“There will certainly not be any lowering of security clearance requirements on my watch.
“And no one should be offended by having religion as part of remembrance services. You don’t have to be Christian to appreciate and respect the history and traditions of the United Kingdom.”
The newspaper published a scathing letter to Mr. Shapps from 12 former senior military officers, who called on the defence secretary to “cleanse our military culture of these poisonous ideas.”
“As retired senior officers of the Crown with experience of senior command, we feel compelled to write to you with a sense of sadness, incredulity, and anger having viewed astonishing evidence of the depth and pervasiveness of the racist and intolerant ‘Diversity, Equality and Inclusivity [DEI]’ ideology being pushed within HM Armed Forces,” the letter reads.
The former officers labelled the reported policies “the perpetration of monumental self-harming” and “a real and present threat to national security that will give aid and comfort to the King’s enemies,” and called for the “root and branch removal” of the DEI ideology.
“The Russians, Iranians, and Chinese will be observing our descent into self-hatred and obsessing over diversity and inclusion with glee. These intolerable policies are forcing the British Armed Forces into moral disarmament and it cannot stand,” they said.
“We call on you as secretary of state for defence immediately to cleanse our military culture of these poisonous ideas and to order a complete reset back to our core values of patriotism and unity that for generations made our armed forces the envy of the world. To preserve and deepen military culture, discipline, and efficiency, the Ministry of Defence should be exempted from the Public Sector Equality Duty as specified in the Equality Act 2010,” they said.
Meanwhile, Housing Secretary Michael Gove said political correctness should not “impair our ability to defend our borders” when doing a media round on Sunday.
Speaking to “Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips” programme, the minister said Mr. Shapps “has been looking at the specific policies we have in the Ministry of Defence in order to ensure that we strike the right balance, that we provide protection for individuals in our armed forces, that we make sure that we draw all the talent available in this country to ensure that we have a strong and diverse military, but also to make sure that these policies operate in such a way as to ensure that political correctness, or some of the more—what’s the word?—‘out there’ approaches that people take towards diversity, equity, and inclusion don’t impair our ability to defend our borders and to make sure that this country is secure.”
“When you’re thinking about who should be in our military, and who should be responsible for the life-and-death actions that determine whether or not all of us can sleep safely at night, then you’ve got to make decisions about personnel and their deployment that are sharper and more acute than in other workplaces,” he said.
An MoD spokesman said: “Our priority is protecting the national security of the United Kingdom and ensuring the operational effectiveness of our armed forces.
“We take security extremely seriously and ensure that all personnel have the appropriate security clearance, which is reviewed on a case-by-case basis.”
