The former Minister for the Armed Forces, Al Carns, has used a personal statement in the House of Commons to set out the reasons behind his resignation. He told MPs that he had stepped down from the role the previous week, describing it as an exceptionally difficult decision and one he did not take lightly.
Carns drew on his own background as he spoke. He recalled spending 24 years in uniform in the Marines, joking that his mother had spent those same years trying to get him to quit. He said he had served in operations around the world, commanded men and women in combat, carried responsibility for their lives, buried friends and stood beside families receiving the worst news imaginable.
He opened by echoing tributes marking the 10th anniversary of the death of Jo Cox. While saying he had not known her, he said he knew what she stood for and praised her unwavering commitment to equality, repeating the words that there is more in common between people than divides them, which he said still rang true and remained worth fighting for.
The first of his reasons concerned the state of Britain's defence preparedness. He argued the country was spending too much time preparing for last year's war rather than tomorrow's, and pointed to past failures such as the Snatch Land Rover, the lack of body armour and the lack of protected vehicles in Afghanistan, which he said he had seen affect those on the front line. He warned that modern conflict pits millions of drones against high-end systems that arrive late and cannot be produced at the pace a war against a major adversary demands, urging the House to push for transformation and delivery before 2030.
His second reason was funding. Even if the plan had been right, he said, it was not adequately funded. He did not lay all the blame at Number 10 or Number 11, adding that he himself had failed to make the argument forcefully enough. National security and economic security, he said, were not competing priorities but the same priority, warning that a country which cannot defend itself will struggle to protect its prosperity.
His third reason was what he called the continued failure to address the treatment of veterans in Northern Ireland. He said a country owes a duty to those sent into harm's way under lawful orders, and that this duty does not end when the uniform comes off. Too many veterans, he argued, had carried uncertainty for too long while others had benefited from political accommodations that were never available to those who served.
Carns framed that final point in stark terms, saying the IRA had failed to achieve its political ends through terrorist tactics and that the country must be exceptionally careful not to help it achieve those ends through other means. He said he remained grateful to the Prime Minister for the opportunity to serve, but could not reconcile the situation with his own understanding of duty.