A Conservative peer has criticised the defence secretary for stoking a “weird culture war spat around ‘wokery'” with his views around diversity in the armed forces.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a Tory peer and former minister, accused Grant Shapps of “undermining” the armed forces “where morale is often low”.
Ms Warsi was referring to Mr Shapps’ decision to lodge a “root-and-branch review” of ethnicity, diversity and inclusivity policies in defence following reports in the Sunday Telegraph that the army wanted to relax security clearance vetting for overseas recruits to boost diversity and inclusion.
Speaking to the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge, Baroness Warsi said: “I am really concerned when I turn on the television and I hear the defence secretary having some weird culture war spat around ‘wokery’, and I’m thinking, ‘you don’t have a clue!
“You’re undermining our armed forces where morale is often low, where they don’t have the best of housing, they haven’t had the best of conditions.”
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Baroness Warsi called for a defence secretary who is “going to take these matters seriously”, bolster troop numbers, and commit to NATO.
She said the UK was meeting the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defence, but only because of money spent on the war in Ukraine.
“We’ve really got to start looking at this again – either we are serious about NATO and about defence, and we have to put our money where our mouth is, or we’re not,” she said.
Baroness Warsi’s criticism comes after the Sunday…
