A senior Royal Navy officer was today slapped down after he publicly waded into a row about defence cuts.
Rear Admiral Alex Burton, commander of UK maritime forces, took to Twitter to vent his frustration about possible plans to take two of the Navy’s specialist landing ships out of service.
He also complained about cuts to the Royal Marines before deleting the post within minutes.
On Thursday it emerged that the Ministry of Defence is considering axing amphibious assault ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark as part of cost-cutting measures.
Among other cuts on the table were said to be a reduction of 1,000 to the strength of the Royal Marines and the early retirement of two mine-hunting vessels and one survey vessel.
Rear Admiral Alex Burton (pictured) took to Twitter to air his criticism of plans to axe two of the Royal Navy’s specialist landing ships
Yesterday Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said no decision had been made and the military’s budget was growing every year.
Axing the assault ships would see the UK losing its ability to assault enemy beachheads and caused alarm among senior Royal Marine officers.
It is understood the head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Philip Jones, formulated the move as part of a package designed to balance the books and free up sailors for the new aircraft carriers.
But yesterday Rear Admiral Burton, a former commander of HMS Bulwark, used the controversy to highlight a comment he had made in July in response to Labour MP Luke Pollard.
Mr Pollard was criticising the decision to scrap HMS Ocean, the current Navy flagship, despite it having undergone a £65million refit.
Mr Burton, who tweets regularly and describes himself as ‘husband, father, warrior, sailor’, pointed to HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, saying he could not enter a warzone by sea without them.
He tweeted: ‘I can work around the temp lack of flat top [aircraft carrier], couldn’t work around delivering theatre entry without @hms_albion @hmsbulwark.’
He then contradicted a tweet claiming the Royal Marines had escaped relatively unscathed in recent rounds of cuts.
Although the Minisry of Defence say no decision has yet been made, HMS Bulwark (pictured) is facing the axe
Breaching military convention, he then tweeted: ‘Actually their numbers have gone down from about 7,400 in 2011 to 6,500 predicated in 2020, that’s a lot for an elite force.’
Mr Burton was today ‘reminded’ of what was appropriate for serving personnel to say on the social networking site, sources said.
According to the BBC’s Newsnight programme, senior commando officers were alarmed by plans to slash the numbers of Royal Marines and ships.
If confirmed, the loss of Albion, a former flagship of the Royal Navy, and Bulwark would leave the Navy without a dedicated amphibious assault ship.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: ‘No decisions have been made, any discussion of the options is pure speculation.’
HMS Albion is pictured being escorted by an armed patrol vessel. It could be axed under new proposals