UK Armed Forces Criticised Over Dozens of Diversity and Equality Officers

Concerns have been raised over “identity politics” in the Ministry of Defence after it emerged there were more diversity and equality officers than Britain has warships.

There are 44 civil servants in the ministry who have ‘diversity’ and ‘equality’ in their job titles, compared with a total of 32 warships in Royal Navy possession, British tabloid The Daily Mail has reported.

The data, which was revealed following a question in parliament from Tory MP Neil O’Brien, comes as the Ministry of Defence is looking to recruit a “diversity and inclusion director” on a £110,000 a year salary.

Former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, Richard Kemp, spoke out against the ministry’s increasing focus on so-called inclusion, telling the Sunday Express: “I worry that all these diversity and equality officials will achieve is to highlight divisions.”

While he acknowledged that “there are always bad apples” in any organisation, Kemp said that in his experience, the UK armed forces are “less racist than society at large… ”, with soldiers seeing each other “as comrades upon whom their lives often depended”.

“The British Army is about working to a common purpose and teamwork, it’s about depending on the person next to you, it’s about service before self. There’s no room for identity politics within that,” the writer and retired officer added.

Responding, a ministry spokesman alleged: “Defence is at its best when it’s diverse. Whilst we recognise that there is a long way to go, our appointment of these diversity and equality officers shows that we are moving beyond platitudes and putting our words into action.”

Earlier this month, Breitbart London reported on veteran journalist Charles Moore’s assessment that the civil service has become infested with politically correct and “explicitly anti-white” doctrines, with ‘critical theory’ now thoroughly embedded in the UK body.

In April this year, senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence, Nick Pett, claimed that if Britain wanted to have “the best Armed Forces, then the only way to go is feminist”, demanding that men working in the field “start to change themselves and lead their conservative, homogeneous organisations into a better, more gender-equal future”.

Last month a former defence and national security civil servant, writing under the name Rob S, praised the Ministry of Defence for having “come a long way on diversity” since he joined it “as a young civil servant in the mid-1990s”.

While hailing the ministry’s plans to recruit a director of diversity and inclusion, Rob S argued there was much more to be done, insisting that whoever takes on the role implement a host of changes including banning ‘microaggressions’ such as gendered language, and renaming buildings and other features which have any links to slavery or the East India Company.

In order to be inclusive, the Ministry of Defence must also redecorate, according to the former civil servant, who asserted that “walls filled with photos of former Chiefs, Defence Secretaries and others, and honours boards of exclusively male former post-holders”, were “oppressive and anti-diversity”.

Breitbart London recently reported that senior British army officers are set to spend more than half a million pounds on a Diversity and Inclusion directorate hiring so-called equality experts who will enforce politically correct standards in the forces.

A report in the Mail on Sunday revealed that the new recruits will be tasked with jobs including ensuring that soldiers and Ministry of Defence employees can “feel authentic in the workplace”.

The move follows several actions in recent years to boost “diversity” in the ranks of the armed forces including adverts aimed at encouraging Muslims, homosexuals and “sensitive” people to sign up, with soldiers who criticised the campaign reportedly forced to face disciplinary action.

This week, the British army joined more than 100 corporations including Google, Microsoft and Disney demanding that the UK government accede to the demands of transgender activists regarding reforming the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.