MoD TOP BRASS ‘TOO SCARED TO TELL PRIME MINISTER’ ABOUT SUBMARINE FAILURES
Scottish National Party Defence spokesperson Brendan O’Hara MP has said reports that the entire UK fleet of attack submarines has been out of operation due to urgent repair and maintenance work leaving the UK’s maritime defence capacity highly vulnerable – is ‘chilling’.
The UK’s seven hunter-killer vessels are understood to be ‘non-operational’. It is also reported that the prime minister has – unbelievably ‘been kept in the dark by defence chiefs’ who have been too alarmed to inform Number 10.
This follows the recent attempt to cover up a serious malfunction at a Trident missile launch test, which was also covered up and caused huge embarrassment to the prime minister when she repeatedly refused to answer if she had been aware of it.
Brendan O’Hara MP, SNP Defence spokesperson said:
“Reports of all seven attack submarines being out of action are astonishing. If – as reported – our complete lack of any submarine attack capability was ‘kept from the prime minister’ – then it is simply indefensible.
“First there was the recent Trident malfunction fiasco, now we have this chilling situation. How can we possibly trust those in charge of our defence when we hear about this utter incompetence and yet another Whitehall nuclear cover up? It is a scandal.
West Dunbartonshire MP and SNP Defence Team Member, Martin Docherty-Hughes MP added,
“The spiralling costs of Trident are out of control and our conventional forces are being stripped bare to pay for it. On the most basic level, surely we need to assess whether Trident is fulfilling its role.
‘’Do we really have an operational Continuous-At-Sea-Deterrent? Has it been interrupted; and if so for how long? Do we have operational submarines currently at sea? Was the prime minister told of any of these problems or were officials so scared of the reaction that they concealed it from her as is now being reported?
“These are all questions the SNP have submitted to the MOD. What is also worrying is whether essential repairs and maintenance, now clearly desperate and urgent, will once again cut into the ever dwindling money-pot to pay for our most basic of regular military defences?’’