Article published in The Sunday Express, 17 September 2017. © Richard Kemp 

FRIDAY, when London was hit by the latest terrorist outrage, was also Battle of Britain Day.

This is a very different kind of war.

But if our political leaders showed just a fraction of the courage of the RAF in 1940, they could end this onslaught.

Here is what they must do:

● DENY re-entry to the UK by anyone who has fought with the Islamic State or any jihadist group. They represent the greatest danger.

● STOP unregulated movement from EU countries to the UK, even before Brexit. Under EU rules we cannot even prevent those known to be involved or previously convicted of terrorism from entering.

● VET all those entering the UK from countries where violence is rife, including refugees from countries like Syria. Our humanitarian obligations must not take priority over protecting our own people.

● DEPORT all non-British citizens involved in extremism or radicalisation. Today, we prioritise their human rights above those of their victims. This must stop.

● THROW OUT and ban from their mosques all preachers who contaminate young minds with their murderous messages of hate.

● SET UP special courts to hear evidence based on secret intelligence that cannot be revealed in public.

● SEGREGATE and if necessary isolate terrorist convicts and others who try to radicalise their fellow prisoners.

● TAG those involved in extremism that cannot be deported or imprisoned so their movements can be more effectively monitored. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph,  13 September 2017. © Richard Kemp

Nelson will be spinning on his column. Under plans the government has been working on for months, if we want to build another naval warship in the future we will have to go cap in hand to Brussels.

When it comes to defence, it is becoming clear that Brexit does not mean Brexit. Judging by a paper released yesterday by the Department for Exiting the EU, which calls for a defence relationship with Brussels ‘closer than any third country’, the government intends to surrender control of UK defence to the EU.

British voters have always been more opposed to this than any other issue. Polls have consistently shown that even among the minority of voters who wanted to remain in the EU, large numbers rejected the idea of an EU army.

The architects of Project Fear, in their desperation to persuade us to vote Remain, assured us no such thing would ever happen. But the British people have been betrayed from all sides. Lied to by the Remain camp, they are now being sold out by the politicians that are supposed to be leading us out of the EU.

Much of this has been done behind all of our backs — including MPs and government ministers. British officials in Whitehall and Brussels have been quietly conspiring with their EU counterparts to draw us further and further into an EU defence union.

Since November last year, five months after we voted to leave the EU, Britain has fully signed up to five separate EU Council agreements which frame a defence union. Although the process has involved UK defence ministers, foreign ministers and the prime minister, the general election as well as intense focus on other Brexit issues no doubt allowed the usual smoke and mirrors to be deployed with even greater guile than usual. Having worked for several years in Whitehall I know well the machinations of the Sir Humphreys on both sides of the Channel. Continue reading →