An RAF cadet has been suspended after saying Islam is the UK’s biggest security threat during a training exercise. The Mail has the story.
He made the comment during a question-and-answer session in which he and other cadets were asked about dangers to British security.
It led to him being kicked off the officer-training course, pending an investigation. …
The air force has launched a probe into the young cadet’s remarks at RAF Cranwell, where the next generation of officers are trained.
Retired rear admiral Chris Parry last night accused the air force of shutting down the “critical thinking” of new officers around controversial issues and said the cadet should be reinstated.
“If I’d asked that question and got that answer I would have also asked the cadet to expand on his thinking and got some critical thinking going rather than suspend him,” he said. …
The cadet was taking part in a 24-week Modular Initial Officers Training course at the training academy at RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire, just before Easter.
He and 50 other students were asked to give presentations, during which they answered questions about the biggest security threat to the UK. …
Rear admiral Perry also said: “If this cadet had answered ‘the far-Right’ I doubt he would have been suspended.”
Worth reading in full.
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So do we infer that we are not considering any defence against Islam?
Not by air anyway. We’ve clearly already capitulated on the Navy front.
I took the Queen’s shilling in 1969 when commissioned into the RAF and served 17 glorious years. I wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in today’s mob.
I wonder what would have happened if he’d said “Keir Starmer?”
Imagine the row if he’d said ‘Christianity’!
Yes. No row at all. Possibly a puzzled look and an invitation to explain. Maybe even disagreement.
The story has actually piqued my interest. What was the correct answer presented to our future RAF heroes?
I was actually thinking about what would have happened if he had answered with “Catholic conspirators plotting to overthrow the protestant monarchy to bring the country back under the yoke of the Roman Church.” Or maybe “Zionist sleepers planning terror attacks againstg the peaceful muslim majority.” This might have raised some eyebrows. But I doubt that it would have resulted in an immediate suspension.
Although I’ve had to cut down on expenditure recently, I never once considered cutting back on my FSU membership.
Thankfully, the situation is now resolved and I have an induction day tomorrow. I note there’s a DEI component. Will I be able to hold my tongue?
Diversity of what? Some arbitrary set of blanket characteristics? Why those and not others? Equality of outcome or treatment and opportunity? Inclusion of who exactly – the incompetent?
Don’t worry, just take along a small England National Flag. 🙂
Not sure just how much ‘critical thinking’ is required to recognise the dangers Islam might present, presumably less than thinking it doesn’t?
Time to remind RAF Cranwell’s blimps and blobs of the old Churchill dictum, “The truth is The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
Quoting from the article about Melia’s book: Truth is not a defense in court.
The unspeakable may be true. But it’s still unspeakable. Probably more so if true.
Normally I would agree it is, but Labour has overtaken.
Noteworthy is here that this cadet is being investigated for inappropriate behaviour, with the allegedly inappropriate behaviour being that he voiced the opinion that Islam would be the biggest security threat to Britain after being asked for his opinion on the topic.
Excellent point.
I wonder if the cadet’s unwitting faux pas was down to pure semantics. He answered ”Islam”, but if he’d answered instead ”Islamists” or ”Islamist extremism”, that would have been acceptable…possibly, which is ludicrous because it’s all Islam, at the end of the day.
Imagine the RNLI boat comes in loaded to the brim with migrants.
Border Force dude: ”Right, listen up. I want all the moderates to climb ashore and line up next to me. Everyone who identifies as an Islamist or Jihadist, and therefore poses a threat to national security, must remain onboard and you’ll be taken back to French waters, tout de suite.”
How many men would remain in the boat? Yeah, exactly.
Aside: Islamist means adherent of Islam aka muslim. The distinction between Islam and Islamism makes no sense whatsoever. Violent muslims adhere to the same religion based on the exact same teachings and holy scriptures as non-violent ones. For comparison, just imagine that someone would be claiming that one has to distinguish between Nazis and Nazists for non-violent and violent adherents of national socialism. It’s the same ideology in both cases and that not all adherents of it commit violent crimes doesn’t change that.
Hear, hear!
Its also not opinion, it is demonstrable and easily verifying fact.
As it’s an assessment of probable future issue, it cannot be a fact because the future hasn’t happened yet. Tomorrow, Mohammed might be raised from the dead by God to become a prophet of peace, tolerance and happiness in his second life for all we know about this yet.
Yet another case for the Free Speech Union.
In related news the student who was suspended by Royal Holloway University for saying a Pro-Palestine campaigner was wearing a tea towel has been awarded an undisclosed amount of compensation after threatening to sue the University. Kicking up a fuss can bring results but obviously people shouldn’t have make a fuss because speech shouldn’t be censored in the first place.
There’s another reason for this: For one person sucessfully “kicking up a fuss”, there will probably be several who cannot afford that for this or that reason and even more who anxiously try to avoid getting into this kind of trouble to begin with, informal peer pressure being already sufficient to make them toe the line. On top of that, making enemies in a university administration is probably not the smartest move for someone planning to study as this particular university as they will likely seek and find an oppportunity to get even with the ‘offender’ in some way which won’t expose them to anything bad for them.
The people behind this won’t believe that an error they made has been corrected. They’ll seek to avoid another egg-in-the-face experience by acting more carefully next time because they’re certainly still convinced that what they did was The Right Thing™ and that just the execution was lacking.
His problem is he’s clearly capable of independent thought, but didn’t apply the groupthink approved answers… last thing the navy wants is independent thinkers!…
Well the Director General of MI5 contradicts these corrupt RAF dweebs, so heads should roll for this gross misconduct and the cadet should be reinstated, apologised to and compensated;
”The headline split of our counter terrorist work remains roughly 75% Islamist extremist, 25% extreme right-wing terrorism. But under that headline, much has shifted. Straightforward labels like “Islamist terrorism” or “extreme right wing” don’t fully reflect the dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies we see.” Ken McCallum ( 2024 ).
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/director-general-ken-mccallum-gives-latest-threat-update
Bit of bedtime reading here, should anyone wish. Confirms the above as the primary threat;
https://assets.poolre.co.uk/sitefiles/2025/03/22253_Pool-Re_Islamic-Threat-Deep-Dive-Report_AW5_Digital_JS.pdf
But the 25% extreme right terrorism is just made up nonsense.
We are in danger.
Question is, is this the death throws of a Far Left administration that knows its days are numbered. Starmtroopers running around arresting everyone for wrong think is hardly going to win them another election.
Just trying to get as many brain washed leftists into every institution as possible before they lose control?
They’re already there, and have been for some decades now as the long march through the institutions has had its effect.
Just for clarity, it’s “death throes”, not “throws”.
From the Etymology dictionary on “throes”:
“A word of uncertain origin, probably a merging of verbs in Old English and Old Norse, some related. Among them might be Old English þrawan “twist, turn, writhe.”
“The modern spelling is attested by 1610s. Figuratively, of any violent convulsions, by 1690s.”