Britain is an island, Mr Shapps, and to defend ourselves we need the Royal Marines. To diminish them would be spectacularly stupid

THE Royal Marines are the Navy’s sea soldiers and its instant strike force — among the toughest, most highly trained and effective troops anywhere in the world.

Their motto — Per mare, per

terram (By sea, by land) — summarises their ability to fight in the harshest terrains and to attack without warning on any coastline.

They can outmanoeuvre all enemies as well as deploying on the most challenging peacekeeping or disaster-aid missions — in their own words: ‘Going where others won’t, doing things others can’t.’

Vital

But amphibious assault is far from their only role. They protect our deterrent capability, stationed in the Clyde to guard our nuclear weapons. They serve on Royal Navy ships, ready to board other vessels and tackle pirates, terrorists and drug-smugglers.

In short, they are vital to our national security. So it defies belief that Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, in the weaselly language of a corporate personnel manager planning a round of redundancies, can have presumed to ask the Royal Navy’s First Sea Lord to ‘provide a plan for how the Royal Marines’ excellent work is taken forward’.

Asking them, in effect, to justify their existence was spectacularly stupid.

My fervent hope is that this was merely clumsy phrasing, and that the Secretary of State simply failed to realise how bad it sounded.

I cannot believe that he is unable to grasp the crucial role the Royal Marines have long played for our maritime forces, or that without them, Britain would lose one of its primary capabilities as a global fighting force.

The Royal Marines’ history of valour scarcely needs repeating. Formed in 1664, they fought at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and the

Normandy landings on June 6, 1944. They also saw battle in the Falklands, while their most recent military deployments were in Afghanistan and Iraq.

During the Iraq War, in March 2003, the marines landed on the Al-Faw Peninsula with more than 2,000 personnel, 80 helicopters and amphibious landing craft.

The successful assault on the peninsula — the site of Iraq’s only deep-water port and many of its oil fields — culminated in the capture of dictator Saddam Hussein’s Basra palace.

Today, as war rages in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, we may need to call on the marines at a moment’s notice. With terrorists attacking our shipping lanes in the Straits of Hormuz, we must be ready to respond.

And in regular exercises in the Arctic, our marines offer a vital defence against the growing prospect of a Russian incursion — a challenge that defines our era.

Our allies, too, rely on our marine commandos. Britain’s national pride and reputation rest in large part on their courage and strength. To abandon any part of that remit would be disastrous.

Exposed

Yet I fear the Royal Marines may be downgraded, given that the Mail has seen an internal blueprint for amphibious warfare that warns that such operations will cost too many lives in future conflicts.

It comes against a backdrop of ongoing spending cuts that leave our island dangerously exposed.

The corps’ ability to make agile forays from the sea is dependent on their two ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. These ‘ Landing

Platform Docks’, about 192 yards long, are capable of launching four large landing craft with shallow drafts, plus four smaller boats suspended from the ship’s sides.

But these essential vessels are currently out of action. They have been docked for repairs at Devonport, Plymouth, and belief is widespread among personnel that they might never put to sea or go on operations again.

Albion and Bulwark can do things other ships cannot. They combine a flight deck with interior hangars that can be flooded to float assault vessels. They are equipped to respond to natural and manmade disasters and, most importantly, they are customdesigned for the needs of an embarkation force.

Their helicopters and hovercraft, for example, are ideal for river work and for operating in areas strewn with debris.

Without them, the marines’ power is drastically limited. Currently, the marines are making do with Royal Fleet Auxiliary Bay- class vessels. But these can carry only one large landing craft inside, and the smaller boats have to be lifted on and off with a crane, a much more laborious process.

When lives are dependent on speed, and every second leaves a commando unit more vulnerable to detection and attack, it is insanely dangerous to dispense with Albion and Bulwark.

I hope the Defence Secretary realises this. Yet Shapps, who took over from Ben Wallace at the end of August, clearly faces a steep learning curve —not least in his use of language.

No other ministry, not even the Treasury, demands more complex understanding of the unique challenges and high stakes. The only way for a newcomer to cope is to take as much expert advice on board as possible — and to accept that the defence of the realm requires rather more than mere political acumen. Shapps must start listening to people who actually know what they are talking about.

The plain fact is that downgrading the Royal Marines is the latest and perhaps most shocking of the systematic funding cuts that have undermined Britain’s defences for years. Manpower was savagely cut in 2010 and, despite pledges to reinstate numbers, the damage continues — just as the world grows more dangerous.

Since 2013, I have warned in the House of Lords more than 80 times against cutting our defences, including our maritime forces. I get no thanks for this — one Government minister accused me of denigrating those who love the Navy, because I keep highlighting the lack of investment.

Enemies

We are assured, instead, that ‘Littoral Response Groups’ (task forces comprising at least two warships and a company of Royal Marines on high alert to assault coastal areas) will be fully operational by the mid-2030s.

What this means in practice remains to be seen, but for Britain’s enemies, the gap between now and the 2030s looks like a window of opportunity.

Maritime power is not only Britain’s best guarantee of national security, it is a fundamental part of our economy, and indeed our identity.

Britain is defined by its geography. We are an island, and without naval power we are frighteningly vulnerable.

But we are also a global power — a force for democracy and freedom around the world. For this we need the Royal Navy. And the Navy, I can tell Mr Shapps, needs its fighting men and women: the Royal Marines.

n AdmirAl lord West of sPitheAd was first sea lord and Chief of the Naval staff from 2002 to 2006.