This article was originally posted on the ‘Save The Royal Navy’ Website for more details of their work see:
http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org
The tradition of Navy Days dates back to the 1920s when the Royal Dockyards were open to the public for “Navy Week”. Under various names and formats these events were held every year (except during WWII) until the Royal Navy finally gave up on them with the Meet your Navy event at Portsmouth in 2010.
Memorable occasions: Besides a wide variety of ships open to visitors, Navy Days in the 1970s until the 2000s typically included flying displays, river and basin displays, parachute jumps, the Royal Marine band, static displays and stalls and much more. There was something for all the family. It is difficult to see any downside to staging these events. The public, particularly in the naval towns
An already stretched and under resourced Royal Navy has been asked to deploy vessels from its ever shrinking Fleet to patrol the UK maritime border.
The Home Affairs select committee has proposed that the Royal Navy be deployed in the English Channel to protect the UK against migrant people-smugglers and the heightened terror threat. Extra patrols around the border are needed because the UK’s fleet of Border Protection cutters is depleted and not sufficient to protect against the threat to the country from the refugee crisis.
It emerged that just three Border Force cutter vessels were being used to patrol the UK's 7,000 miles of coastal borders. The English Channel has in recent months become the key front in the battle to protect Britain’s borders. Last week a court heard how smugglers were making up to £100,000 per journey ferrying boat loads of desperate migrants into tiny ports around UK’s porous coastline.
Demonstrating a misunderstanding of the current ca
