PENNY MORDAUNT: Why I will ALWAYS fight for this great nation

The defence of the realm is the first duty of any government. For me, the importance of defence was driven home early.

I was nine years old and standing on the Hot Walls in Portsmouth, watching the naval taskforce sail for the Falkland Islands. I might not have understood the geopolitics of the situation, but I was old enough to know that we were standing up to bullies. I understood resilience. And I also understood sacrifice, when some of my classmates’ fathers didn’t come home from the conflict.

Penny Mordaunt surged to second place in the Conservative leadership race on Wednesday (July 13)

I am often asked what Global Britain means and what our new role in the world should be. Drawing on what I learned as a young girl, we don’t need a new role in the world. We simply need to be ourselves. We need to hold fast to the values that we all share, values of strength, fairness and decency, of a willingness to stand up for what is right.

Of course, we face new threats. We are still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic; we are dealing with global economic challenges; and we are reacting to Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.

Our government will continue to honour the commitment we have made to our Nato allies of spending 2.5 per cent of our GDP on defence. We will stand with Nato in defence of our common values and we will not flinch from the hard graft and putting boots on the ground on the alliance’s borders.

Let’s take pressure off our armed forces by ensuring they are doing jobs only they can do. I will stand up a civil defence force that will enable a volunteer team with emergency planning skills or military skills to be brought in to help at major events such as flooding.

We don’t need a new role in the world. We simply need to be ourselves. We need to hold fast to the values that we all share, values of strength, fairness and decency, of a willingness to stand up for what is right

We also need to look after our armed forces’ welfare. I am proud to have support from MPs that worked tirelessly in this space and proud of our record on veterans. I am proud our party has so many veterans and serving members amongst us.

We must hold our position in Ukraine. There cannot be any territory ceded to Russia. They must lose the war. Although that will be difficult, we have to be honest with our people that we need to do that for our own safety and security.

Defence is just one part of our armoury. There are our intelligence agencies, there are our crime and cyber security centres. There are other aspects of this nation’s security and we must ensure that they are working together to develop our future integrated position.

We also need better situational awareness and horizon scanning and need to be thinking longer term, 15-20 years at the very least. I will create a National Strategy Council to complement the National Security Council, and this will work across government departments to look at our long-term challenges and opportunities.

These commitments and changes will mean that our armed forces will be properly supported and will be able to plan and innovate with certainty.

We NEED consistency in our spending approach, and we also need to ensure that this is integrated with research and development, working especially with smaller companies so we can really make sure we are making the best use of innovation.

Finally, I’m incredibly proud of our armed forces. I’ve been a member of our armed forces and I’m still pleased to be serving them as an Honorary Officer. I know perhaps better than any other candidate that it is our first duty to this country to defend them.

People can be confident that this job is safe in my hands.

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