Our Royal Navy: soothing troubled waters since 1546
SINCE the earliest days of the Royal Navy, we’ve asked our sailors to ensure the maritime security of the homeland every bit as much as we’ve asked them to protect our interests and challenge our adversaries on the high seas.
After its founding in 1546, the first ship fitted out specifically for the protection of UK fisheries was commissioned in 1586. Indeed, in 1668, all recorded Royal Navy activity was in countering piracy and fishery protection in home waters.
That’s no different today. In anticipation of disputes over fisheries following Brexit, the Royal Navy had ships ready to respond. Meanwhile the Royal Marines maintain a highly effective maritime counter-terrorism capability to respond to any acts of piracy or terror in UK waters.
Now like most people, I want to believe that everyone trying to enter the UK in small boats is a genuine asylum seeker. And I’m proud our country is one of the most generous in the way we take in those fleeing death and persecution.
The main thrust of the Prime Minister’s announcement this week was about deterring illegal migration so that we can sustain capacity for safe and legal routes to the UK, thus allowing people to escape danger at home without putting themselves in the hands of merciless traffickers. He’s also trying to spare them from risking their lives in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in a dinghy that wouldn’t look out of place in the swimming pool on your summer holiday.
The Royal Navy will play an important part in this mission.the Italian andaustralian navies have performed very similar roles alongside their coast guards when tackling small boats in their waters. Navies bring surveillance and command and control capabilities that complement the in-place resources of the Coastguard and Border Force.
Asking them to take primacy in the Channel reflects that this is about bringing to bear all of the Government’s maritime assets in a co-ordinated way and integrating new vessels and surveillance capabilities we’re in the process of procuring.
Saving life at sea, disrupting the gangs of traffickers and ensuring control of our border are all things that the Royal Navy has been involved with over the centuries.they are core tasks every bit as important as projecting hard power on the high seas.
However, unlike 1668 this certainly isn’t everything the Navy is doing in 2022.
As I write, beyond the work we’re doing in home waters, we’ve a carrier and amphibious taskforce in the High North, frigates and destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean, Baltic and Gulf, and patrol ships in the Caribbean, Singapore, Falklands,western Mediterranean, Papua New Guinea and en route to Antarctica.
And, of course, there’s our submarine force, but Putin will have to do more than read the Sunday Express to find out where they are!