That is the headline story from a wide-ranging interview with the Shadow Defence Secretary in today’s Daily Telegraph:
British forces will pull out of Germany for good, nearly 70 years after the Allied victory in World War Two, as part of a Tory defence “revolution” being drawn up by Dr Liam Fox. The Shadow Defence Secretary told The Daily Telegraph that ending Britain’s 25,000 strong military presence on the Rhine would be part of a fundamental reorganisation of Nato forces designed to free troops for military operations outside Europe.
The decision would close one of the unfinished chapters of the last war that saw the British military go from occupying force in the ruins of Nazi Germany in 1945 to guarantor of German security against the threat of Soviet invasion during the Cold War… Dr Fox’s decision to call time on Britain’s military links with Germany is a signal of his determination to force through a “wholesale recasting of our foreign and defence policy”.
Dr Fox also uses the interview to:
- call for the public to be told the truth about the “cost of defeat” in Afghanistan;
- say that setting a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan would give succour to our opponents;
- indicate that he expects to serve a full term as Defence Secretary if David Cameron becomes Prime Minister;
- emphasise his desire to see a 25% cut in administrative costs at the MoD;
- confirm that the General Sir Richard Dannatt will become a peer but would not be offered a ministerial job.
Read it all here.
Jonathan Isaby
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