A winter of discontent is upon us and it falls to the military to bail the government out. Six hundred soldiers are getting a week’s training to be ready to cover for striking Border Force staff at ports and airports over the Christmas period. A few hundred more are expected to be called on to help cover during the 21 December ambulance workers strike.
Of course, the military exists to act in last resort: their help was necessary and vital during the Covid crisis or where there is flooding or another civil emergency. Sometimes it is only the armed forces that have the personnel and knowhow to assist in a crisis. However, this winter, it is hard to escape the feeling that soldiers are at risk of being politicised for little gain to themselves.
A breathless but vague overnight statement from the Cabinet Office declared that ministers would hold crisis Cobra meetings on Monday and Wednesday to discuss “plans to limit disruption since unions first proposed strikes”. Monday’s meeting, however, will be chaired not by the prime minister Rishi Sunak, but Cabinet Office minister, Oliver Dowden, suggesting the urgency does not reach the top.
There is no fresh detail on military activities – the cover for border staff is well known, and plans to include details on the numbers that might be set aside to cover for ambulance workers will not be announced until Monday at the earliest. But ministers’ refusal to negotiate with striking nurses over pay indicates that the government is not ready to hammer out a deal, but instead wants to fight.
It is into this arena that the soldiers step in. For some it will mean a third Christmas in a row that has been disrupted, prompting grumblings from within the ranks, to deal with non-core military tasks at a time when the war in Ukraine is ongoing. Nor is it obvious that the rank and file benefit in other ways: last year’s pay award of 3.75% is well below the 11.1% annual rate of inflation – and soldiers cannot strike or join a trade union to call for better terms and conditions.
The growing reality is that soldiers are increasingly been asked to assist not just in civil emergencies – a task for which they are well suited – but in civil contingencies, such as at Border Force, where ministers appear to have run out of other alternative options. Labour counts that the military have been asked to help out on 85 occasions this year, although full details of the agreements in place are not routinely made public.
Perhaps the clearest indication of the current priorities is the situation in Estonia. Earlier this year the UK doubled its contribution to the security of the Baltic country in the aftermath of Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine. But half the troops – around 650 – are due to return to the UK this month where they will instead be on standby as the war continues.
Meanwhile, it is a similar number, 600, who after going through a week’s training will be guarding the border as the public head for skiing or other winter holidays. Turning expensively trained soldiers into a civil gendarmarie to help face down striking workers is not how most people would want to see Britain’s expensively maintained military used.
