Britain’s armed forces are a bit of a joke these days. So much so that even the general public is getting a glimpse of just how bad things are. With the Queen’s funeral and the King’s coronation recently, the armed forces have been out in their No 1s, looking smart, putting on a good performance, and the public watch and think: isn’t this great?
Then this story hits about the RAF recruiting priorities, and suddenly people realise: isn’t this awful?
The RAF has decided that rather than picking the best people suited to be pilots, it is more important to have as many females and “people of colour” as possible instead, to the point where they cancel training courses if the groups only contain White men. This disgusting policy should be called out for discriminating against those of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish ancestry solely based on their physical features, and many top officials should resign as a result of this disgrace.
But it gets worse. We knew this was a problem in the RAF in August 2022 when Group Captain Elizabeth Nicholl resigned in protest at being told to recruit more females and BAME members and to pause hiring White men. But now we find out that the same White men who have been denied these positions have been referred to as “useless white male pilots”. Can you imagine the furore if this was said about blacks or women? There would be urgent debates in parliament, with MPs all virtue signalling like absolute champions about the plight of the poor BAME/women. But because it’s about White men, this story has remained relatively hidden from the public.
In addition to this discrimination against men who have English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish ethnicity, women and BAME candidates were being fast-tracked onto courses without passing a basic fitness test, according to the emails being reviewed currently.
It’s also very interesting to note the desperation to get these women and “people of colour” into any job regardless of suitability. They’re not worrying about how many women and minorities aren’t actually signing up to serve the British Armed Forces. Most infantry regiments are majority English, Scottish and Welsh; that doesn’t seem to be an issue. The RAF advert that keeps popping onto the screens features a black woman told she could fly an F35. But there’s no rush to get women into the submarines or frontline units such as the paras. No, they only seem to want them in the prestige jobs.
The RAF has recently declared it wants to increase BAME and female recruits to 20% and 40%, respectively. Again, imagine if they had said they wanted to reduce the number of BAME and female recruits in the air force; you’d hear the outcry of injustice nationwide.
This does bring about an interesting question, however: why? Why does it matter how many BAME or women join the RAF? Imagine if none of them wanted to join, or none of them could pass selection, so what? Where’s the problem here? The only honest answer that fits is that it’s not about BAME and female recruiting; it’s about discriminating against those of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish ethnicity and excluding them from these opportunities. They’re good enough to be called upon and die in foreign wars as frontline infantry or be confined to a metal hull under the sea for months, but they’re not good enough to fly in the RAF.
Why any English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish men would consider joining the armed forces today and be racially profiled and discriminated against is beyond me. Is gaining qualifications or getting a trade worth it if society is actively looking to exclude you?
This ethnic discrimination and racial animosity need not exist if the nation strived to be homogenous and uphold strong national conservative principles; racial politics would be consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs. The English, Scottish, Welch and Irish would have primacy in their respective nations as any people with self-determination should. After all, it’s their homeland and the land of their ancestors. Our current government, however, wholeheartedly supports these destructive racial policies. The present Air Marshall will retire soon with his gold-plated pension and many other privileges awarded by his former position, happily closing the door on the way out to other men with the same physical features as his own. So this story will become a memory, and the racial circus continues into absurdity.
Is this good enough for the 21st century? Maybe it’s time we focus more on offering human dignity and do away with the notion of racial dignity, regardless of what it is. Something needs to change.