The French Defence Minister has stated that defence ties between the UK and France will remain in place following BREXIT.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said:
“Brexit will not damage in any way the extremely strong defence cooperation that we have with Britain. This partnership exists and will continue to exist. The British Minister (Michael Fallon), who I met this morning, has confirmed this shared wish to continue with this very strong cooperation.”
His comments follow US Secretary of State John Kerry predicting “an even stronger NATO going forward”.
“We have high expectations of a very strong NATO meeting and important deliverables. That will not change one iota as a consequence of the vote that has taken place.”
In Brussels Kerry met NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“After the UK decided to leave the European Union I think that NATO has become even more important as a platform for cooperation between Europe and North America but also defence and security cooperation between European NATO allies.”
A House of Commons briefing paper claims that the direct impact of BREXIT on the UK armed forces is minimal.
The briefing paper states:
“The EU may feel the loss of the UK more acutely because the UK is one of Europe’s largest military powers and is one of the few EU countries capable of taking command of a mission. A UK exit could potentially leave the EU with fewer assets and capabilities at its disposal, although the UK could choose to contribute to EU military missions as a third party state.
Arguably the biggest impact will be a reduction in the UK’s ability to influence the direction of travel for European defence. Exit from the EU will remove one of the strongest voices opposing further defence integration and the creation of what is commonly called a ‘European Army’.”
Further, it is claimed that:
“Exit from the EU will not prohibit the UK from working closely with individual European nations to jointly procure equipment, exercise or deploy together on military operations. Withdrawal negotiations will decide whether the substance of two EU defence directives are retained. These directives are designed to make the EU internal defence market work better and to increase competition in the EU defence sector. Major UK defence companies argued before the vote in favour of Remain.
The prospect of a second referendum on Scottish independence will reignite the debate about the location of the UK’s strategic nuclear deterrent, Trident. The Scottish Government opposes its presence in Scotland. The UK Government has promised a vote on the renewal of the deterrent but no date has been given.”
NATO is a security alliance of 28 North American and European states, established by the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. NATO’s fundamental role is to protect the freedom and security of its member states.
Britain in NATO is pivotal to the alliance. The alliance may be American-led and American-dominated, but Britain remains a vital anchor. Not only are we a fellow nuclear power, we have been the staunchest and closest military ally of the US, in terms of intelligence sharing, battlefield operations and interoperable hardware allowing the whole alliance to benefit.
Douglas Hurd of the Royal Institute for International Affairs said:
“NATO is one of the principal props which have allowed Britain to punch above its weight in the world.”
Under the auspices of NATO, the United Kingdom has been active around the world and has played a leading role in many conflicts.
Well it would look pretty disgusting for the French to spit their dummy out with Britain just after the centenary of the battle of the Somme where thousands and thousands of British and commonwealth troops died on French soil with French troops as well for France and Europe
The agreement between us was nothing to do with the EU, the French know as well as uk do both militarys supplement each other well so to throw this away would hurt them more than us.
The EU has nothing to do with NATO and the UN too, but some seem scared it’ll affect those too… its crazy.
Given how stupid the whole ww1 was, Jason, I don’t see the relevance or why todays frogs would have anything to do with their great grandfathers stupidity. But of course it has nothing to do with the EU. You’re all still in NATO with the turks, polish and other immoral, unethical and undemocratic countries. 😉
You mean NATO, who Sweden is in the PfP scheme with?
And actively works with in a number of defence areas?
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/25/fearing-russian-bear-sweden-inches-toward-nato-finland-moscow-military/
No we’re not getting closer to NATO at all. A majority of swedes are strongly, STRONGLY opposed to joining any alliance and moving away from our “neutral” stand. A minor liberal group works hard to make it *look* otherwise and yes, Russia is bad, it’s our proud national boogeyman. Given how large and involved NATO is, it would be hard not to work with it in “peace keeping” operations since we’ve always worked with Denmark, Norway and the other scandinavian countries (Welcome Scotland btw). But given the reasons UK left EU you really should leave NATO as well, for the… Read more »
Then why bother posting? Being in NATO and its ramifications has NOTHING to do with our Decision to leave the EU, not even slightly similar.
Read my op, I was just answering one of the Jasons, and since he went way off course I couldn’t care less if you have a problem with that, Bob.
good for you.
VERY BIG MONEY IN WAR TOYS
We’ll still run away and hope you do the fighting?