British Defence and the European Union.

Bill Cash, Richard Shepherd and 17 patriots tried to protect the Sovereignty of Parliament, but the amendments to close any loopholes in the Bill, to prevent further transfer of powers from Parliament to the European Union, were soundly trashed in the subsequent vote.

Do you people really understand what is being perpetrated by the EU?  Do you care? Do you even know what a “passarelle” clause means? Over 50% of the electorate want to be free of a political union which has the sole aim of reducing the United Kingdom into petty regional areas held in thrall to an unelected European Commission. 

The Labour Government used the guillotine to curtail the debate on the Lisbon Treaty in Jan/Feb 2008. As a result, whole swathes of legislation on justice, foreign affairs and defence were approved without discussion.  One of the most serious constitutional and irresponsible issues to be approved was the replacement of corpus juris by the European Arrest Warrant. The right to trial by jury is enshrined in the Magna Carta and cannot be reassigned.

All three main parties reneged on granting a Referendum, which is now irrelevant. The damage can only be undone by repealing the treasonable Lisbon Treaty in its entirety.

Parliament is rapidly becoming increasingly irrelevant, impotent and incompetent now that the majority of the legislation is created in Brussels. I predict the scenes currently being flashed around the world from Ireland, Greece, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt will reach the streets of Britain as the cuts in the Spending Review begin to impact the public, very soon now.

You, the British Government, cut the Ark Royal, the Harriers and the MRA4 to save money.  Yet you continue to donate my taxes to an unelected, undemocratic and unwanted European Union. You, hail a cut of 5.9% to 2.9% increase  in the EU budget as a victory of your leadership in Europe, while at the same time you savagely cut spending in Britain by 14%.  

These are the irrefutable figures. EU £6.9 BILLION:  International Aid £7.8 BILLION:  and £3.9BILION  to a catastrophically incompetent Irish Bank. 

This spending amounts to over half of the Defence Budget of £34 BILLION.

It costs, according to the House of Lord’s debate £100 MILLION per annum to have kept these assets in service , until such time as the new aircraft carriers and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) enter service.  It follows therefore; you place the security of this country second to your insane, incomprehensible fixation with the failing European project.

The cancellation of the MRA4 comes at a time when the submarine threat to this country is increasing, and there is no strategy in place to combat this threat.  Even the CDS admitted his concern, as did the First Sea Lord at this gap in our defences.

YOU produce a Defence Treaty with France based on the use of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, a ship with a catalogue of poor maintenance and which is in a far worse state of repair than the Ark Royal.  Its nuclear powered engine and propeller system has been a known source of unserviceabilities for years and recently has returned to dock for the second time in a month. No mention is made of the equipment incompatibilities, or indeed what aircraft could operate from it in the next seven years now that the Harriers have been scrapped.

Incredibly, the SDSR predicted there was no foreseeable threat to British interests within the seven year time scale until the new carriers and JSF become available.  If anything serves to underline such a rash prediction recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and the Yemen should serve to cast doubts on such forecasting.

My time line is as follows. In 2009, 32 South American countries signed a petition to the United Nations requesting action to support the Argentinean claim to the Falklands: September 2010 HMS Gloucester was refused permission to dock in Montevideo (the second RN vessel so treated): January 2011 HMS Clyde was refused permission to dock in Rio de Janeiro and finally Dilma Rouseff (former Marxist guerrilla) becomes the President of Brazil and one of her first visits will be to Argentina.

The meagre forces currently based in the Falklands could be easily overrun as Sir Sandy Woodward has indicated. My guess is that tensions will continue to rise in South America as they perceive an enfeebled Britain beset by economic woes and domestic unrest and turmoil, no clear defence strategy and will seize a suitable opportunity to repossess the islands.

How therefore, you propose to provide sufficient back up cover over an 8000 mile supply chain to the Falklands (or Las Malvinas which seems to be the preferred  FCO  name now)  without a carrier based task force is beyond comprehension..

One can only guess at the French reaction to a request to send the Charles de Gaulle, assuming it is serviceable, to the Falklands. Bear in mind it was France which has close ties with Argentina, which supplied the Mirage jets and deadly Exocet missiles which inflicted such heavy damage to our forces.

The only other assumption is that it is the Government’s intention to negotiate the transfer of the Falklands to Argentina.

On top of the political scene, the financial pressures from Europe will continue to build as Britain funds its share of the European Defence Agency (EDA), NATO, and the ever burgeoning cost of the utterly useless Galileo satellite programme which has been rejected by just about everyone except the French. Estimated cost to Britain is has now risen from £20 million to £2.2 billion.

Other concealed costs relate to the Europol  police programme with its main UK base at the Bramshill Police College, and another  office in London.

Confirmation of all these figures can be checked by accessing the Open Europe think tank web site.  At the same time just check their statistics for the costs involved in the provision of Van Rumpoy ‘s offices and staff , and those of the unelected Catherine Ashton’s External Action Service.  A total of one billion euros.  33000 EU bureaucrats awarded pay rises when British state workers are being made redundant and having to accept pay cuts. The pay rise is upheld by the European Court of Justice, a misnomer if ever there was one, and so the judges receive significant pay rises.  How incestuous can it get?

As for fraud, check on Open Europe’s carefully researched list of fraud and organised crime. The EU has just fined Britain almost 1 billion euros for alleged breaches of its preposterous directives on green energy, refuse and waste disposal.  It sets impossible targets which can only be met by even greater expenditure, and which it knows are impossible to achieve in the required timescales. There is even a suggestion that a similar fine will be levied on the borough councils.

Now look dispassionately at what this country has become. An island state with fixed boundaries, with no control over its borders and unable to curtail the human flotsam and jetsam from within the EU arriving in our country and being given rights which has taken the British worker years of work to acquire.  Unrestricted immigration permitted at the rate of 200,000 per year, a figure which exceeds the capability of the building industry to build the houses and infrastructure, on land sites which become increasingly rare and more expensive.

We are unable to deport convicted terrorists and rapists because the EU places their human rights above those of the rest of the population, and yet we continue to extradite British subjects under the European Arrest Warrant without regard to their rights. Some 4000 people have now been surrendered to foreign jurisdiction according to the latest figures. Forced to give voting rights to prisoners.  Even Cameron deplores this ruling but if Britain does not comply, legal challenges at vast expense to the taxpayers will ensue.  Madness does not even begin to describe the stupidity of the political elite who have generated and presided over this ever increasing strain on our finances.

Despite the Banks being bailed out with over £80 billion of taxpayers’ money, they continue to dish out bonuses with our money to an obscene degree. These are the institutions which departed from regular retail banking and proceeded on a campaign of cheap, unsecured credit supported by a Government which regarded it as acceptable to profit from their reckless development of worthless assets.  The irony is that the Banks may well be fined £3billion or more, but who will the Banks charge to rebuild their balance sheets with their extortionate lending rates at 500% more than the bank rate?  You, the customer and tax payer.

Politicians in the Commons and House of Lords convicted of fraud and still try to fiddle their expenses.  Even today they continue to whinge and complain about the IPSA system to regularise their expense claims. I would have been court martialled and cashiered for a fractional infringement of what some politicians claim as “mistakes” or “within the rules”. Just think how many suits of body armour could have been provided for our troops with the more than £3million fraudulent claims.

Over the past five years I have written innumerable polite letters requesting action be taken to stop the transfer of powers from Parliament to Brussels. It is appalling that at my age and after twenty years service in the Royal Air Force I feel compelled to write to our elected representatives in these terms. Patronised as one of the “chattering masses” by the self proclaimed “political elite” who were, and still are, possessed of the knowledge that only they know what is good for Britain, I have had enough,. If events do not concentrate their minds on what could happen here, it will serve to show how self delusional the majority of our MP’s really are.

Since writing to Cameron, Osborne, Hague and Liam Fox not one has had the courtesy to acknowledge receipt or to challenge the veracity of what is written here.  I demand therefore that in their own interests the Government refuse to pay any more money or to transfer any more powers to the EU.  This should be followed by the repeal of the Lisbon Treaty as a matter of urgency. There is no other way.

On the 21st June 1954, I sat on the coach taking the rostered pilots for the afternoon flying details from Cranwell to Barkston Heath. I was due to fly my Intermediate Handling test, so I was taking a more than usual interest in the weather, and vaguely reflecting on the some what high accident rate that had developed with the introduction of the Boulton Paul Balliol into service since the end of March 1954.

The weather was a typical Lincolnshire June day with a 15-20 knot westerly wind, and virtually eight eights cover of strato-cumulus, base between 1500 and 2000ft, with tops at 5000ft. Little did I realise at the time what a significant part these conditions would play in the events to follow.

The Balliol had been introduced into service at Cranwell to replace the Harvard 2b. Fitted with a Merlin 35 it was considerably more powerful than the Harvard, and its rather unique “torque stall” feature had already contributed to two or three accidents, one of which was graphically illustrated by a rather crumpled Balliol which had crashed , fortunately the right side up, just off the side of the runway beyond the runway controllers caravan. The torque stall could occur if the throttle was rammed open at low speed on an overshoot, and the torque generated by the massive power surge to the propeller would cause the aircraft to rotate around the propeller. There had been two unexplained crashes at night with the aircraft being totally destroyed and on the second one, an engine failure on takeoff resulted in the death of both Instructor and student. As far as I can recall we student pilots were never debriefed specifically on these incidents, although of course we were all trained to open the throttle smoothly on a low speed missed approach or overshoot.

It is relevant to add at this stage that I had started my flying career at the age of 16 by taking an ATC gliding course at RAF Detling some 7 miles from my home in Maidstone , Kent. Enthralled by the experience, I continued to hitch my way to the airfield after the course finished, and made myself generally useful helping to retrieve the gliders. As the Instructors were short of dogsbodies to do the menial tasks, I was soon taught to drive the retrieving vehicle pulling the cables out from the winch, and from there it was but a short step to being taught to drive the winch to launch the gliders. As a reward I was given hangar flights, the last flight of the day positioning the gliders back to the hangar for overnight storage.

Then one lunch time, I was given a launch in a Kirby Tutor and with incredible luck I found myself in a thermal which was strong enough to overcome the high sink rate of the Tutor. The Instructors all went off to lunch in the Officers Mess, leaving me to my own devices.

I struggled to stay in the thermal, and gained some height, and the uplift got stronger, so I stayed with it adjusting the turning circle of the glider to stay in the central core, and finally got to 3000ft or thereabouts. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and from my vantage point I could see from Rochester through the vale of Kent almost as far as Ashford. Then I lost the thermal, I like to think it petered out in an inversion layer, and encountered equally strong downdraft and landed back on the airfield, just as the Instructors returned from lunch. I was told that I had qualified for my British Gliding Asssociation “C” certificate by soaring for more than fifteen minutes. So I continued working every weekend, slowly building up my gliding hours.

I applied to join the RAF as a pilot applying for a Cranwell cadetship, and while the selection procedure meandered through its tortuous process, I was offered a Home Command Gliding Instructors Course which I passed with flying colours. As I had applied for a commission, I was granted an honorary status of “Officer Cadet” and permitted to take lunch in the Officers Mess with the other civilian Instructors, one of whom was Derek Piggott. I loved the instructional work and built up my hours instructing younger ATC and CCF cadets. One of the major instructional points was the action to be taken in the event of cable failure and I soon developed a high sense of survival by stuffing the nose down as soon as I felt the loss of speed, and this sense saved me from disaster several times in my later flying career.

When I wasn’t gliding at Detling, I went to Rochester Airport where there was a Reserve Flying School for the ex-war time pilots, and by the time I joined the RAF I had over fifty hours flying on Tiger Moths, and I still have my ATC/CCF log cards to prove it.

Meanwhile, things were not going well with the RAF Selection procedure. Incredibly, I failed my RAF medical eyesight test due to a reported astigmatism in my left eye. Despite my protests and proof of flying experience, I was refused a second opinion, and so to cut a long story short I accepted an eight year short service commission as a navigator. So I was posted to Jurby on the Isle of Man to start my training as an Officer Cadet Navigator. Fortunately there was a gliding club on the airfield, so I was soon flying again. I was very fortunate to have Squadron Leader I G Broom as my squadron commander, and one day he called me into the his office and asked if I would like to train as a pilot.

I explained the sorry saga of events, and he immediately arranged for me to have a further specialist eyesight test and medical in Harley Street, which I passed with no trouble. His investigation revealed that my initial eyesight failure was due to an incorrect administrative entry. So he asked me if I would like to re-apply for Cranwell, which of course I accepted with great alacrity.

Having been re-graded as a pilot and while I went through the Cranwell selection procedure again, I finished the Jurby Course, and went to No 5 FTS Ternhill as an Acting Pilot Officer. I had just gone solo on the Prentice when the news game through that I had been accepted for No 63 Entry at Cranwell, that I had to resign my commission and start again as an Officer Cadet. This seemed a small price to pay, so here I was on my way to Barkston for my Intermediate Handling Test. I have digressed, really to show that I was in fact, comparatively more experienced than my colleagues, and that my gliding experience was about to pay off.

At Barkston, G Flight was commanded by Flt Lt Barry Phillips, whose younger brother Colin was coincidentally a colleague of mine in C Squadron. As Flight Commander, Barry was going to conduct my test. We went through the usual briefing procedure which involved an instrument climb out through cloud on the assigned bearing, a climb to altitude to carry out spinning and aerobatics and the usual upper air work, to be followed by a max rate descent into the low flying area, a practise forced landing procedure and a return to base.

I did the pre-flight inspection and noticed that an engineer had written “Do not turn” on the propeller, but Barry merely said the aircraft WG143 had just come out of a major service. So I completed the checks and we took off. All was going extremely well. I was very conscious of the stronger westerly wind at altitude, so it came as no surprise when we spotted the Boston Stump land mark through the only small gap we could see in the cloud. I closed the throttle and spiralled down in a very steep turn and fortuitously managed to roll out on a westerly heading straight into the wind at approximately 1300 ft. We still had a little distance to go to get into the low flying area, so I opened up the throttle to maintain altitude.

As the rpm increased there was an enormous bang from the engine as it blew up and stopped completely. Instinctively, I stuffed the nose down, selected the flaps down and managed to knock off the fuel and engine master switches, and then we hit the ground. Barry tried to transmit a Mayday message but was cut off as we hit the ground. The whole thing had taken twenty seconds.

The gods were with us that day. We had landed in one of the biggest pea fields in Lincolnshire. We ground to a rapid halt with the engine hissing and steaming in front of us, but it did not catch fire. There came the moment of realisation that we had not managed to jettison the hood and were trapped inside. Tales of distorted hood rails jamming the canopy momentarily flashed through both our minds, and then Barry was a blur of movement as his hand shot up and wound the canopy back without any jam, and next we were out and running from the aircraft.

We had ground to a halt only a few yards from some workers in the field and they rushed up to us thinking we had seen them and managed to avoid them, but in fact they had been hidden in the greenery.

I reflected on the fact that if the turn had not worked out as planned, thirty seconds earlier and we would have rolled out downwind heading into the centre of Boston. The rest of the afternoon was a bit of an anti-climax. After about thirty minutes the Boston Fire Brigade arrived en masse, followed by an irate farmer as they caused more damage cutting up his field as they tried to get to the aircraft. We heard another aircraft flying around, but without any real idea of our position and with the low cloud base, they stood no chance of seeing us. Barry went off to find the nearest telephone while I remained at the scene.

Eventually, a car arrived and I was driven back to Cranwell. Barry had instructed me to report to Sick Quarters, although I was perfectly alright and uninjured except for some shoulder bruising from the safety harness straps as we decelerated. By the time I got back to Cranwell it was nearly seven pm, and the Sick Quarters was manned by a single orderly. He asked me why I was there. I said I had just been in a Balliol crash and had been ordered to report to Sick Quarters. He asked me if I was ok. I said I was, and that was that.

By the time I got back to my room, had bathed and changed and got in to dinner the dining room was virtually deserted and none of my Entry seemed to be aware of what had happened. I slept very well that night, and was rather complacently thinking that Barry Phillips would debrief me on the trip and tell me I had passed my IHT.

The next day I went flying in the morning with my usual Instructor, Reg Nelms. As far as I can recall, there was no debrief of the incident and my handling of it, so after my check dual trip, I went off solo and returned to the Flight Office to see that I had been rescheduled to take my IHT the following day, again with the Flight Commander. I was quite miffed about that, but was told that as I had not completed a full sequence of the traditional forced landing procedure, or completed the low flying part of the test, I had to retake the test. I duly achieved a satisfactory pass on 23rd June 1954.

The final aspect of this tale is that WG143 was the first Balliol to be recovered intact after an engine failure. As I understand it, the technical inspection of the engine revealed that as the engine had been de-rated for its use in a training aircraft, some modification had been made to the camshaft. Those of you who know the Merlin will be aware this slim piece of steel runs the length of the engine. Apparently the modification had set up stresses which caused the camshaft to fail, with the result all the cylinders fired at the same time. Little wonder that the engine stopped so abruptly.

With the engine idling in clean configuration the rate of descent was a minimum of 1500 ft per minute. With no engine and flaps down the ROD must have been nearly double that, which is why we had so little time to react.

Then on reading the “Gazette” which was produced by 63 Entry after we left Cranwell, I noticed a comment which I had not picked up earlier, to the effect that Barry Phillips had resigned as a flying instructor and pilot and become an administrative officer shortly after this incident.

A few years ago, I attended Colin Phillips funeral in Bournemouth. Barry was there but when I tried to reminisce about our fateful trip together, he appeared not to remember the incident. So I am none the wiser as to whether my perception of what happened matched his. It was a rather surreal experience altogether and the lack of any formal debriefing or discussion of the incident has only served to deepen that feeling. Indeed without my log book and the attached photograph from the Boston Standard, I would still find it hard to believe it actually happened.

The over-riding lesson I learnt from the incident, was never to be complacent in the air, to be alert for any contingency and to accept that a contingency does not necessarily occur with a solution that you have trained and practised. Now with 13000 flying hours, and over 7500 simulator hours, I think I can safely say the flying and administrative training I received in the Royal Air Force was second to none, and equipped me for a lifetime career in aviation, which was all I ever wanted to do.

Far from the arid deserts of Afghanistan,

and Helmand

A distant dot grows larger against the sombre,

lowering English winter sky.

The giant Globemaster softly touches down

In England, in England

With its precious cargo of our heroic war dead

The ramp slowly lowers to reveal the gaping vault.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the coffin emerges,

From its temporary cocoon

Carried on the shoulders of young men,

who may well die in battle, soon.

The Last Post trumpets into silence across the vastness of the airfield.

With due reverence and solemnity the gallant soldier is transferred,

To the waiting hearse to begin

Its mournful passage to Wootton Bassett,

Where the grieving families, saddened populace,

Aging veterans with lowered flags

Pay their last respects.

This is the price we pay for freedom.

Robert Snare

Christmas 2009

Squadron Leader Robert T F Snare RAF (Ret’d) FRAeS

Contact details:

Main UKIP website: http://aldershot.ukip.org

Personal website: http://www.robertsnare.com/

email: 4ukip@uwclub.net

Email 1:  alukip@fsmail.net

Email 2: robert@robertsnare.com

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/Caradoc722

Facebook:  Robert T Snare

Blog:  http://robertsnare.wordpress.com

Write: Elmhurst, Seale Lane, Puttenham GU3 1AX

Tel: 01483-810383 

National Issues

Repeal of the Lisbon Treaty

The repeal of the European Arrest Warrant

Production of emission free power from geothermal sources.

Local Issues

To instil the highest standards of purpose, ambition and confidence in efforts to regenerate and renovate our two towns by working closely with Rushmoor Borough Council and the town dwellers..

The controlled expansion and development of Farnborough Airport, in a manner best suited for the interests of the local community.

To promote and attract high tech industries to the Business Estates

To promote the improvement of the roads.

To promote the provision of high class facilities for young adults to participate in sports, the arts, and aviation in all its forms of gliding, power and simulator flying.

To care for the weakest members of our society with emphasis on the long term care of our wounded soldiers..

The Duke of Wellington

I am very pleased to announce that I met Councillor Eddie Poole today, and we have agreed to join forces in a bid to get UKIP elected in Aldershot.  Eddie is the local Councillor who has defected from the Conservative Party to join UKIP. We spent the morning touring the constituency, and Eddie displayed his unrivalled and detailed knowledge of the area, and of the local party politics.

Eddie is ex-Army and I am ex-Royal Air Force, and we still have a naive belief in attempting to do what we perceive to be in the best interests of the electorate. Neither of us can stand the political correctness which grips and pervades this country, and which is so damaging to reasoned argument.  We committed ourselves to a long period in the services to enable democratic free speech, and we certainly defend your right to disagree with anything we say.

Eddie spent some of his time in the Falklands campaign.  I come from an earlier generation when I flew fighters in Germany during the Cold War period. Contrary to more recent history, which claims that the EU has prevented wars in Europe, it was in fact NATO which kept the peace, stabilised Europe and ironically, enabled the European Union to expand into the Federal state it is today. In fact EU credibility of its record in Europe is sadly diminished when you recall the brutal and savage wars in the Balkan states, Armenia and Georgia

I believe that with our combined abilities and knowledge, UKIP are set to make serious inroads into the other three parties. It is certainly my mission to attempt to become the first UKIP MP to be elected in a national General Election.  Just remember that as recently as June 2009, UKIP beat Labour into second place in the European Election.  With the appalling precarious financial position of the country anything can happen in the next two months, which could decisively shift the balance of political power.

I hope you will all join the ground swell of opinion to sweep the current MP’s, who have let you all down in so many ways, into history. Simply, vote UKIP.