Graeme Downie MP says Britain is already in an unconventional war with Russia and argues that “our deterrence is our people” as skills shortages test the UK’s defence resilience.
Britain has been fighting an unconventional war with Russia for at least a year and is not yet doing enough to prevent that confrontation becoming a conventional one, Labour MP Graeme Downie has warned.
Speaking at the ADS Skills Conference, the MP for Dunfermline and Dollar argued that the country’s ability to deter Russia ultimately depends not simply on weapons and equipment, but on whether Britain has enough skilled people to build, maintain and operate them. Downie said Scotland’s position at the gateway to the North Atlantic and the High North demonstrated the scale of the challenge.
He said: “It shows why the UK has been in an unconventional war with Russia for at least the past 12 months and I don’t believe our government, society or economy is doing what it is necessary to prevent that becoming a conventional war.”
Downie pointed to pressure across a range of domains, citing Russian drone activity affecting NATO allies, attacks around the Ukrainian and Polish border, the foiled attack on Leipzig airport, threats to subsea infrastructure and disruption affecting parts of Germany’s energy network. His wider argument was that responding to those threats requires industrial depth as much as military hardware, particularly the ability to replace equipment, sustain production and maintain forces during a prolonged crisis.
He said: “Vladimir Putin must see a resolute, informed and resilient British population. A strong, skilled, innovative population that they do not want to challenge.”
Downie added: “If armies win battles and economies win wars then our workforce secures peace. Our deterrence is our people.”
He spoke on shipbuilding in his own constituency as an example of the pressure facing the defence industrial workforce. Downie said: “Three hundred. That is how many welders Babcock was forced to recruit from the Philippines to work on the construction of the new frigates just down the road at Rosyth. That should be a national embarrassment.”
He acknowledged that overseas recruitment had provided a practical solution which allowed work to continue, but questioned why Britain was not producing enough workers domestically for those roles. He said: “These are highly skilled jobs. They are well-paid jobs. But why are we not producing enough of the people to do those jobs ourselves?”
ADS has told the Scottish Affairs Committee recently that it is monitoring around 10,000 live engineering vacancies across Scotland, with shortages spanning welding, fabrication, steelworking, plating and electrical, mechanical and systems engineering.
Downie also rejected arguments that higher defence spending should be funded by cutting welfare, saying national resilience depended on the strength of society as a whole. He said: “I have heard glib suggestions that cutting welfare is the route to security. Give people less so our armed forces can have more stuff. I utterly reject that. Because deterrence is not about stuff.”
He added: “You do not improve your deterrence by taking food out of the mouths of children.”
The MP also directed criticism towards the division of responsibilities between Westminster and Holyrood. Defence policy is reserved to the UK Government, while skills and economic development are devolved. Downie described the argument that defence was therefore someone else’s responsibility as “technically true. It is strategically inadequate.”
He also referred to plans for two Defence Technical Excellence Colleges in Scotland, saying they “need to be created right away”. Industry itself, he argued, also had to take more responsibility for fixing the skills shortages it regularly identifies.
With only around one in six Scottish employers offering apprenticeships in 2024, Downie challenged companies complaining about recruitment difficulties to explain what they were doing to create the workforce they required. He asked: “What are you doing to create the skilled people you need?”
Downie added: “Employers need to be part of the education system, not simply consumers of its output.”
He closed by returning to the central warning of his speech, arguing that building skills and industrial capacity should itself be treated as part of national deterrence. Downie said: “We are in an unconventional war with Russia and we must do everything to make sure that doesn’t become a conventional war that could cost hundreds, thousands, millions of lives.”
He added: “We must deter that and our deterrence is our people.”
“What are you doing to create the skilled people you need?”
I could not agree more about this point. The number of times I’m heard employers complaining that there aren’t enough skilled people in the workforce for them to hire, or mourning the state of young people when they come out of university. Yet I’ve also seen job adverts for bus drivers that needed a degree, entry level jobs that required 5 years experience in the underlying technology, and almost no companies I’ve worked for this century had a proper training programme.
So more apprenticeships please, and more courses to keep skilled people up to date in their crafts. If I were in government, I would allow spend on that to appear as an asset on the books, depreciating over five years and going if the employee left.
Or more and more companies offshoring critical work in cyber and IT to India because no one has the ‘required skillset’ in the UK….so fund IT & cyber apprenticeships!
That’s a scandal I’ve talked about for years. Our young cannot compete with 300 million Indians educated and willing to do IT work for half the price. Every time I commission IT work I’m given the option to onshore, near shore and off shore. The latter is hard not to justify when you are working in a business and working on tight budgets. The government should tax all off shoring of IT work to such a degree that it’s not an option. I’ve always promoted internal investment in people in companies to deliver solutions, it’s ultimately cheaper and thats how I learnt my craft and become a lead in what I do, without a degree or A levels and from a tough background, people invested in me when I was young.
No sympathy for companies complaining about skills shortages. People are not born with them. If they lack them then train them like companies used to!
Employers should be incentivised / subsidised to employ long term unemployed and starter jobs should not have big barriers to employment. Also the uk armed forces need to have more of a relationship with uk civilians.
Pure meaningless drivel from a Labour MP – if you are not going to fund defence properly then it’s extremely likely the U.K. will lose a war with a near peer adversary.
Labour have continued to massively underfund and cut British military assets since taking office – they are investing in swamping the nation with illegal migrants – Labour are outright lying about the state of the Royal Navy – Royal Air Force and British Army and if the U.K. ends up in a confrontation with Russia the British people will suffer because Putin will hit our vital infrastructure which is currently unprotected for the most part – we have virtually no missile defence.
The Royal Navy isn’t fit for purpose it’s been horrendously cut – the British Army is way to small and under equipped and the Royal Air Force needs to massively increase it’s capabilities too.
As much as this ex-Labour for Life voter detests the woke Left, the current situation was not of Useless Labours making. Useless Labour (sic) inherited it from a party that also deserted its core voters. The rot didn’t start in 2024. Now that fake aristocrat Rees-Mogg wnats the unwashed to go and fight for King and Country! Reversion to type?
I went into a public-‘ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play.
From ‘Tommy’ by Kipling
All this bollocks yet Al Carns who resigned with Heally has mysteriously been absent from making any comments or criticism! Does he now agree with the way we are going nowhere?
These people are, for the most part, words.
Our people are our deterrent. Well I see what he means but it is not enough to have the skills to make the weapons you must also have the weapons. The ability to make more is useful.
Under NATO there is a deterrent that Russian cannot ignore. Even without the US Russia would lose.
That said I believe that the US has far too much to lose economically if nothing else not to ensure the west prevails. Not to mention that the US would obviously see themselves as the next target using our kids as cannon fodder.
Im going to give my to pennies worth because I am totally pissed of with our national flag and patriotism being used as political tool of a group with specific agenda.. or similarly disliked by other groups with other agendas. What hacks me off most is the lack of respect that its causing to OUR flag.. right, left or centre it’s our flag, new or old citizens, whatever our ethnic background or religion, it’s our flag… not a political tool for one group or a symbol to despise for another.
Honestly I have a very big problem with it being flown without pride and reverence.. honoured on a flagpole is where it should be.. not zip tied to a streetlight for someone’s personal political agenda… I saw one the other day just tied to railings and abandoned like trash the .. tattered and flapping around in the mud on a dirty street corner, it actually made me angry. When we raised the flag when I was younger we did it with reverence and saluted it..
So just stop disrespecting our national flag and actually try and see what is good and great about our nation, not what some political warfare troll is spewing about how ashamed we should be, or why we should hate and disrespect other citizens of our country.
Disagree with each other, disagree with the government.. then vote.. but do it with respect and dignity for each other, for our country and for our government ( which no matter if you agree with the how or what, is always trying to do its best). Anything else is just feeding the true enemies of this nation.. and they are watching and see a nation that cannot disagree without hating each other as weak and ready to fall.. and the will push and push and one day they will try and pull our temple down.
👏👏👏🇬🇧
Many true comments in your post mate and I agree, however one main disagreement is that Governments are “always trying to do its best”, sorry that nowadays is a fallacy (one which we wish would actually be true) but most recent Governments and certainly this one, do their best for their own ideological programs and own interests as individuals! Cheers.
I try to be optimistic and work on the assumption most people are trying to do their best, even if they fuck it up😬
Fair play 👍
Most problems in politics are a result of bad judgement. Most politicians go into politics to improve life for their fellow citizens.
The problem is that different people have different ideas of how to achieve that and most of them forget that having a credible deterrent is essential.
Exactly, as things stand there’s more reason to feel more threatened by our own govt than Russia.
Absolute shambles in Whitehall!!
Agree.
They should get out of the “19 box fleet” fixation, find the money and commit to additional 3-5 T31 ships into the fleet. That will lift the spirits of the nation and enable a greater ocean presence and resilience without blowing our trumpet too much. Help continue to maintaining international law and keeping the trade lanes and country to country relations open all the while being squeezed by bigger powers and non state actors and their agendas. What used to be called at my UK boys high school while we all queued up to class as “bundling”…anyone in the middle trying to get in got “bundled”…gently roughed a bit. Lol.
🇬🇧 🚢 🇦🇺
Go in first or last preferably last. 😂
We need to focus on the speed of production. T45s were produced in what 3 years with one being launched every year – something like that.
We need to aim for between 2-4 ships built per year but we would happily build for other countries. We need mass and quality and the important thing for countries like Norway is they get a good design but don’t need to build themselves. They have other skills which would help us as have many of our other European allies.
Our flag is our flag, not to be appropriated by racial hatred manipulated or even sponsored by Russia seeking to destabilise & divide us.
We’re reaping the reward of allowing the richest to close down British manufacturing & engineering & moving those jobs to China(Our main threat).
There used to be 300++ welders in my small town, but now we have to import them from the Philippines? Thank you Maggie.
Sorry pal, bit too late for that shite! Skilled people don’t grow on trees and the continued reduction of the military industrial complex over the last 30 years plus can’t be undone in 12 months! However two things need attention, this current crop of clowns in charge need to prioritise this re-building and fast, with cash injections and skilled pathways in the defence sector, but also need to realise they are pretty much losing support from most of these people they expect to work and fight, namely the white working class male population age 18-25!
But saying that, part of the problem was when slimy Blair wanted all kids to go to university in the late 1990s as opposed to apprenticeships! That way over a generation he could develop a liberal population with a natural left wing slant, all willing to follow the left ideology and thought process. No one really gave a shit about actual skills and careers for future industry and we are now paying the price for that!
Boom.
Couldn’t have said it better myself!!!
Just one add it takes money to do all of those things. It doesn’t grow on trees so what little we have/generate needs to be targeted.
The present Labour government needs to refocus it from welfare to National Defence/Resilience. The most annoying thing is that they know this,but so far have been unwilling to do it. JFDI!!!
Jeepers, bringing in 300 welders from the Philippines!? Maybe there’s a golden opportunity to sell the AH140/T31s to the Phillipines!? Considering their welders helped build them. How good a validation is that! They have the skills, can maybe do a full/partial licence build like Indonesia, plus hopefully NZ, and offer to other SE Asian countries?
I think it’s important to note what the Tommo, Tommies and new far right have been saying and putting out to their followers .. now I don’t want to get into a who’s right about how we deal with the boats.. different question.. but these guys and there followers are all over social media saying that Russia is not a threat, Russia is our friend, we should not fight for our country as it’s now run by international financial families like the Rothschilds ( that’s far right code for Jews by the way).. they are literally now producing anti HMG pro Russian propaganda… I’ve been watching the Tankie shite so I know what they are producing. They are literally encouraging surrender to Russia.
HMG of all colours has been recklessly cutting our defences for many decades, reducing deterrence & hastening defeat. These Tommo’s are literally the fifth column.
I agree mate the foolishness of HMG to the left of us and essentially a fifth column to the right…