IT’S EYES WHITE!

Forces fail to promote a single ethnic-minority member to senior ranks

THE armed forces do not have a single person from an ethnic minority background at the most senior levels.

Not one BAME officer has risen to Lieutenant General or above – or the equivalent in the RAF and Navy. The Ministry of Defence admits there are so few black senior officers that it could not give exact numbers.

Instead it said there were fewer than five BAME officers of Brigadier rank and above in each of the three services.

It is believed the highest nonwhite service personnel are an Air Commodore in the RAF, a Commodore in the Royal Navy and a Brigadier in the Army.

By contrast there have been dozens of black generals in the US, including Gulf War supremo Colin Powell and former Central Command chief Lloyd Austin.

Just 8.8 per cent of our armed forces are from a BAME background, but numbers are rising.

One black former sergeant who won a race-discrimination case last year hit out. Randy Date, 41, of Birmingham, said: “I spent 16 years in the Army and I only came across one black officer and he was a captain.”

The MoD has made reforms to improve diversity but admits it will take years for recruits to climb to the top slots.

A spokesman said: “Diversity in the senior leadership has improved in recent years, but not as fast as intended.”