Latest in the British Armed Forces’ Long Recruitment Crisis: Air Force Personnel Selections Focused on Race Over Talent

Military Watch:

Latest in the British Armed Forces’ Long Recruitment Crisis: Air Force Personnel Selections Focused on Race Over Talent



British F-35 PilotRoyal Navy


An official inquiry into recruitment practices in the British Royal Air Force (RAF) has found that the service implemented highly discriminatory practices against males of European ethnic origin in order to meet targets of diversifying the personnel base, according to a statement by the head of the service Richard Knighton.

Although the Ministry of Defence long refuted the information, leaked internal memos highlighted that ethnic and gender diversity were important performance goals in the service. Knighton claimed that those who joined the RAF at the time of the policies still met all required standards, and that "there was no compromise of entry standards and no impact on operational effectiveness."

The reports come amid a broader crisis in the British Armed Forces’ recruitment, with reports since the early 2010s highlighting that around 40 recent of recruits were barely literate which has not notably improved since. As the services have struggled to recruit from more educated segments of the population, they have been forced to lean increasingly heavily on personnel under 18 years old to fill their ranks, with these technically child soldiers sent into war zones despite specific pledges to the United Nations not to do so.

The Air Force itself has suffered from a serious lack of training slots forcing recruits to often wait months at a time to begin serious flight training, with technical issues hampering the effectiveness of Hawk training aircraft while flight instructors have left the service for jobs in industry. Training issues have been particularly acute for the F-35 fighter fleet. 

The service has faced a long line of scandals affecting in areas other than recruitment, which have ranged from cost overruns in acquisitions of F-35Bs from the United States, years long delays to the F-35B’s attention of full operational capabilities, and plans to cut acquisitions of F-35s by around 50 percent despite the aircraft being at the heart of the fighter fleet’s modernisation. 

Aside from the F-35, both of the Air Force’s other two high profile acquisition programs the E-7 airborne early warning and control aircraft and the A400M transport have both faced serious delays among other issues. The result has been a significant further decline in the service’s standing in the world, which has been the trend particularly since the late 2000s.

The other services and the Navy in particular have faced similar issues, forcing it in April to strip its barely used new aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales for parts. The problematic F-35s, which are years behind schedule in attaining full combat readiness, are operated jointly by the Navy and Air Force, forcing the latter to use the F-35B variant that has a shorter range, poorer flight performance, stealth coating issues, and costs close to 50 percent more to acquire as it is the only variant capable of operating from British aircraft carriers.