The leftist government in Britain has come under fire from former military top brass over plans to use electric vehicles on the battlefield as a part of its green energy agenda push.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is reportedly set to accelerate tests of battlefield electric vehicles in the coming year. Although initially thought up under the so-called Conservative government in 2019, the experimental testing is an expansion by the recently-elected left-wing Labour Party government, The Telegraph reports.
A government source told the broadsheet: “New and emerging technologies can support decarbonisation efforts and improve battlefield capability, reducing the supply chain vulnerability of liquid fuel and also reducing the heat signature and noise of vehicles on the battlefield.”
According to the paper, the Labour government has ploughed over £400,000 in contracts to defence firm Magtec, which specialises in installing electric drive systems in vehicles.
Last week, Prime Minister Starmer said that the green agenda will be a key focus of his government’s defence strategy, which would seek to “support net zero, regional growth, and economic security and resilience”.
The plans have come under heavy criticism from prominent retired military officials over concerns that the government may be prioritising its ideological vision over the safety of British troops on the battlefield.
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The former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, said: “What this amounts to is virtue signalling by MoD, trying to get into the climate change agenda. I suspect it will be wasting quite a lot of people’s time and resources in trying to show they are playing their part. At the moment, the technology is just not there.”
Colonel Kemp explained that keeping traditionally powered vehicles supplied with fuel is already a difficult task and said that he “can’t see how it would possibly work with EVs.”
“Fighting battles is an extremely difficult activity – to make it unnecessarily even more difficult seems to be a crazy endeavour. I would be pretty confident that it is just not at all a starter in terms of maintaining the level of battleground capability that we have now.”
The former leader of the Royal Irish Regiment in Iraq, Colonel Tim Collings added that he “doubts” that enemy forces will be considering converting their vehicle fleets to electric anytime soon, as they will “be looking for immediate effect, not approval ratings or whatever.”
“I doubt a battery can currently provide the horsepower necessary for warfare. What’s driving this? Is it battlefield necessity or fashion? If it’s fashion then it’s a bad idea. Renewables alone aren’t sufficient to deliver the power we need for potential conflicts,” he said.
An MoD spokesman said that the “rapid advancement of electric vehicle technology has opened up new possibilities for military applications” and the planned tests will be to determine if the EVs can “match or exceed” the performance of traditional vehicles.
“The Ministry of Defence remains committed to pursuing innovations that could enhance the operational effectiveness of our Armed Forces, while also supporting sustainability where possible.”
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