British Armed Forces Federation - Criticisms and Controversies

Criticisms and Controversies

In the course of evidence to a House of Commons Committee in February 2006 the Chief of Defence Staff of the time, General Sir Michael Walker (now Lord Walker of Aldringham) argued that

If we had a set of Armed Services that reacted to every whim of every influential group in it, we would get nowhere in delivering military capability for this country, so I believe that the chain of command must do that business. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body does look after the conditions and pay concerns and we would certainly lose the AFPRB and I am not sure we would get as much attention from the Government in terms of rewarding people.

Sir Michael went on to give the example of an unspecified national contingent which, while he was in command in Bosnia, had (he told the Committee)

laid down its arms because, it said, the pay deal was not right, so they put their arms down. Do you really see British Armed Services doing that? That is the sort of trouble you get into when there is a representative body who are fighting back at home, your soldiers are at the front and they do not appear to be achieving.

Speaking in an Armed Forces debate in the House of Lords in June 2006, Field Marshal Lord Inge acknowledged a "growing demand for a military federation or union", but went on to pose the rhetorical question "whether those who have federations and unions have ever won".

A report published in November 2007 by the British think tank Demos commented that

Perhaps the most distinctive development over the last decade has been the launch of the British Armed Forces Federation (BAFF) as an independent campaigning professional association for serving and retired service personnel... The response of senior commanders to the creation of BAFF and their criticism set out for the House of Commons Select Committee has been mixed. While some senior commanders have argued that any independent organisation designed to ‘fight for the rights’ of British troops is completely unnecessary and threatens a dangerous breakdown of military discipline, others, such as the late Lord Garden, a former RAF Air Marshal..., have been ‘surprised talking to retired senior military people who are prepared to think about it, saying there might be a case for it’.