General Sir Roly Walker said politicians would be having a ‘frank conversation’ with citizens to ‘consent to sacrifices’ in preparation for conflict.
General Sir Roly Walker (Image: PA)
The head of the Army has warned that our political leaders are about to call on ordinary Britons to prepare for war. In an extraordinary address, General Sir Roly Walker chillingly predicted that “very soon” a “frank conversation” would be had between politicians and the population about “just what is going on”.
Sir Roly’s comments come as Russian acts of aggression have ramped up against the UK over our continued support for Ukraine bravely fighting Moscow’s four-year-long invasion. The Islamic regime of Iran too has become emboldened in recent months, openly threatening RAF bases on UK soil in retaliation for American warplanes using them as staging posts for US President Donald Trump’s disastrous war in the Middle East.
And in the coming weeks, Prime Minister Andy Burnham is expected to launch a new campaign to encourage British households to be better prepared for any crisis, including armed conflict. Against this powder keg backdrop of global conflict, Sir Roly didn’t mince his words speaking to some 700 soldiers at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire.
“Very soon the political leaders of this country will start to have a frank conversation with the citizens of this country about just what is going on and where the risk lies,” he told soldiers in comments picked up by cameras for the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), “They are going to try and explain to our citizens that our citizens have got to consent to sacrifices to prioritise defence and security.
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“And then they are going to ask those citizens, to whom we are not necessarily at the front of their mind, that they too need to play a part in the defence and security of this country.
“They need to understand what we do for them. They need to consent to allow us to do that, which means sacrifices by them.
“And ultimately we are going to need them to back us, to back you to do the one thing that you do that nobody else gets to do and that is to take the fight to the enemy.”
Firefighters battle blazes caused by Russian strikes in Ukraine (Image: Getty)
The general added: “As anyone who is studying the trajectory of world affairs will realise, there is extreme jeopardy in the world. And the business of soldiering is coming back into the nation’s psyche.”
Sir Roly is not alone in his worrying assessment of a looming threat of war. In June the Chief of Defence Staff, Sir Richard Kighton, told the BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme “this is the most dangerous period that I have known”.
He added that Russia has been “probing, challenging, testing our defences”, and is “raising the stakes and risks crossing a line”.
Mounting fears of war come as Britain broke ranks with Washington this week, with Andy Burnham and King Charles openly backing Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenksy amid a growing spat with President Trump over his controversial agreement to buy diesel from Russian’s President Vladimir Putin.
Trump struck the deal in the hope of lowering fuel prices domestically ahead of knife-edge crucial mid-term US elections, despite Moscow continuing to wage a horrific bloody four-year-long invasion of Ukraine.
Echoing Sir Roly’s comments, MI5’s chief Sir Ken McCallum hinted too that ordinary citizens may soon need to play their part in defending the nation. In his annual address in London on Tuesday, Sir Ken called Russia “aggressor number one” and revealed more than 50 people have been arrested over Iran-linked plots against the UK in the past year.
He said: “My message to the British public is this: you have a stake in our national resilience. You too have a vital role to play. It might be quiet. It might be life-saving. It all counts.
“Our adversaries are trying to mess with us, undermine us, divide us. We can choose not to let them.”
“To keep ourselves safe, we need our nation – our people, our businesses, our communities – to be clear-eyed about the more contested world we now live in; but also confident in our ability to resist the pressures our adversaries try to put us under.
“You should expect to hear more from government in the coming months on how we can all be more resilient.”
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump (Image: Getty)
With relationships between London and Washington strained, British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting met with his outspoken US counterpart Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon on Thursday in a bid to shore up any rift. In a not very optimistic post on X, Mr Streeting wrote that “the gravest dangers of the 20th century are returning”.
Mr Hegseth is said to have assured the UK team the vital US-backed Starlink communication service used by Ukraine for early warning of Russian missile attacks had been restored to full power after an apparent outage during the spat between the White House and Kyiv over the diesel deal. Speaking to the BBC, Mr Streeting said: “I am reassured, and was reassured directly by Secretary Hegseth, that the service has been restored.”
Conservative former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace earlier told the broadcaster he believed Mr Trump “wants Russia to win” and that “all his actions show he’s much more supportive of Russia than Ukraine, and that should worry us all”.
Asked about Sir Ben’s intervention, Mr Streeting said: “My reflection on the meeting I’ve just had with Secretary Hegseth is that this is a fight between freedom and self-determination and democracy for Ukraine, and Russian tyranny…
“America ultimately comes down on the side of freedom. I think there’s no doubt that President Trump wants to see an end to this war and wants to play a role in negotiating a peace.”
With Putin seemingly able to charm Trump, the Kremlin has been increasingly warlike towards the UK with Russian warships probing the English Channel having to be repeatedly escorted by the Royal Navy. In June, the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich fired ‘warning shots’ at a UK-registered civilian yacht in an extraordinary incident 23 miles off the Isle of Wight.
In April, then Defence Secretary John Healey, revealed three Russian submarines conducted a “covert” operation over vital communication cables and pipelines in waters north of the UK. Mr Healey said at the time “any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences”. A month later Russian warplanes “repeatedly and dangerously” intercepted an unarmed RAF spy plane over the Black Sea.
Moscow has also been suspected of conducting cyber warfare against Britian.
In response, Downing Street agreed this week to send another shipment of the feared Storm Shadow missiles to Kyiv to aid in the Ukrainian defence against Russia.
Iran has also been accused of trying to hit UK military sites, including a suspected plot to attack RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire in September, where US warplanes operating in the American war with Iran are based. The PM previously said the presumed terror plot was “almost certainly” directed by Iran.
Andy Burnham faces Labour revolt over huge blunder: ‘They will lose seats!’
Labour MPs are terrified about a “Burnham Brexit backlash” from voters.
Prime Minister Labour Burnham faces an election nightmare (Image: PA)
Andy Burnham could face a revolt from his own MPs “nervous” about losing their seats if the Prime Minister decides to call a rumoured snap election.
Conservative MP Esther McVey told Daily Express Deputy Political Editor Steph Spyro that there was a “jittery agitation” and a “nervousness” in Westminster amongst Labour MPs worried about whispers Mr Burnham might call an election in a bid to sure-up his authority to lead the country.
Speaking on the Daily Expressso podcast Ms McVey, the MP for Tatton, said: “There’s been rumours there could be a snap election, they (Labour MPs) don’t want that, many will lose their seats.
“And also many of the Labour MPs, which are Brexit-voting seats, they just don’t understand why Andy Burnham has brought the Brexit debate back onto the table. They thought when they were getting this new Prime Minister they were going to have ‘ideas Andy’ and lots of energy.
“And what they’ve ended up with is confusion and indecision.”
Ms McVey added that some senior Labour MPs had told her this week that “they feel like they are just treading water” and it’s not even worth coming to the Commons because it’s a “zombie Parliament”.
Another said, Ms McVey claimed, that they “don’t want Brexit brought up” and that by the Prime Minister putting it on the agenda again he was “picking at a scab”.
She added the unnamed Labour MP told her “it is a mistake, there will be a Burnham Brexit backlash”. She claimed one MP talking about his seat said that Burnham’s stance on Brexit was “bringing Reform back to life”.
Esther McVey (right) didn’t hold back talking to Express deputy political editor, Steph Spyro (Image: Daily Express)
Andy Burnham has been accused of “unpicking” the original Brexit deal after he announced a key UK-EU summit next month will be used to push for new trade deals with the bloc. The summit will take place in Brussels on November 20, where the two sides will seek to sign a new food and drink agreement, a youth mobility scheme and a pact on emissions trading.
On Monday, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch accused the Prime Minister of revealing his hand before the negotiations begin.
She told the Commons: “What has the Prime Minister chosen to focus on today? Brexit. Here he is unpicking the deal this country signed with the EU a decade after the referendum.
“He is not going to get a better deal. The EU are tough negotiators, and it’s not just that the EU are tough negotiators, he has already revealed his entire negotiating hand.
“He has just blurted out everything he wants in this statement and I will tell him now, as a former trade secretary, this is not how you conduct negotiations.”