Articles index

• British Armed Forces Federation: An Independent Voice (PDF file) from the 2 April 2007 edition of The House Magazine - The Parliamentary Weekly:

The covenant between the Nation and the Army (and, by extension, the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force) has received much attention in the media in recent months: in reality, many within the Armed Forces feel that this covenant is a dead letter...

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• British Armed Forces Federation - Representation In Action (PDF file) from the 7 January 2008 edition of The House Magazine - The Parliamentary Weekly:

We have been unable to find any example of operational disruption in any military force of any advanced country, anywhere in the world, as a result of lawful staff representation. Arguments against staff representation tend not to withstand close scrutiny... the fiercest ex-military opponents of representation tend to have served in the 1970s.

Most of our treaty and coalition allies have long recognised some form of staff representation for their armed forces personnel...

• Do our troops mark the 'X'?  feature article in launch issue of 'Total Politics' magazine about electoral participation by armed forces personnel:

Douglas Young, of the British Armed Forces Federation (BAFF) ... believes: “It’s a very good thing if political parties realise armed forces voters use their vote – they’re not just voting on family tradition, they examine policies carefully”. Kevan Jones MP has introduced a Private Members Bill calling for the BAFF to be officially recognised and wants more interaction between politicians and troops. “I don’t think the average MP often meets someone serving in the armed forces and that should be changed.”

• Fighting for soldiers on the front line about BAFF Executive Chairman, Douglas Young:

“Nobody should think it is about battles stopping for tea-breaks or anything like that,” he said.

“There were some fears that we would make things difficult for the chain of command, balanced by a fear in other quarters that we were in the pocket of the chain of command – ex-officers in regimental blazers and so on.”

• Silence in the Ranks (2005) (PDF file - 200KB) about the 2005 General Election and electoral participation difficulties for service personnel. Closing sentence:

We would be happy also to contribute to a wider debate about the representation of the armed forces community and its relationship with the democratic system.