British military veterans warn Brexit would make UK less safe: ‘It would be the worst thing we could possibly do’

‘We’re single-mindedly trying to stop Brexit. We fought other wars and stopped people – we’ll fight this one too’

During 23 years in the RAF, Bernard Rumbold was on the front line of the fight against Khrushchev. Now he has his sights set on Boris Johnson.

The air force veteran is one of several hundred former military personnel joining forces as part of the Veterans for Europe group to warn about the impact of Brexit.

Along with his fellow former servicemen and women, he will travel to London on Saturday to take part in a mass demonstration in favour of remaining in the EU.

The 76-year-old will be pushed around the March for Change route in a wheelchair by a friend – or, as he calls him, “my engine”.

Veterans for Europe was set up in 2017 to dispel the idea that British military veterans are mostly right wing and support Brexit, and to raise awareness of the threat that the group says leaving the EU poses to Britain’s armed forces.

During his two decades in the air force, Mr Rumbold was stationed at RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire, the first line of defence against Russian aircraft at the height of the Cold War, and later served in the Falklands War.

Speaking to The Independent at the RAF Bomber Command Memorial in London ahead of the march, the chaplain said he feared that Brexit would destroy the peaceful Europe that British armed forces had fought so hard to help build, and warned that it would leave the UK as easy “prey” for its enemies.

He said another referendum on EU membership would be “a great thing”, adding: “Brexit is nonsense and needs to be consigned to the rubbish bin.”

Veterans for Europe now has hundreds of members across the country, all of whom have served in the armed forces, and is led by Brigadier Stephen Goodall, a Second World War veteran who served in Burma.

Mr Rumbold dismissed what he said was an anti-EU stereotype of British troops, insisting that armed forces personnel are “for the most part very pro-Europe... there are very few Brexiteers”.

He said: “Veterans for Europe is an organisation that got together when people realised that instead of [the idea of] veterans all being red-blooded thickheads who want Brexit, a lot of us are very pro-European because of our experiences in the services and all the friends we’ve made in European forces working in Nato and so forth and living abroad in Europe.

“We’re very Europe-conscious and Europe-minded and so it coalesced together into an organisation. We’re single-mindedly trying to stop Brexit. We fought other wars and stopped people – we’ll fight this one too.”

The RAF veteran, who continues to serve as a chaplain to air force cadets, said the EU had “brought peace to Europe”, and warned that this would “collapse” if Britain left the bloc.

He said: “The EU as a factor in peace is probably predominant. When countries are trading with each other and having cultural exchanges and being friendly in political ways, there’s no wish for war.

“France and Germany up until 70 years ago were the deadliest of enemies and had been for centuries but nowadays they’re the greatest of friends, and that’s all down to the influence of the EU.”

Mr Rumbold said he feared that Brexit would not just make the UK more vulnerable, but would also lead to the fragmentation of the EU and strengthen Russia.

He said: “Brexit would be the worst thing we could possibly do. It would be like taking the keystone out of a bridge – the whole thing would begin to collapse. Many people in this country don’t realise how much influence this country has in the EU...

“To take that away would lead to the EU falling apart and a lot of countries, such as Greece or Italy, wanting to go. That would signal the end and that would be a victory to Putin – what he wanted and what the Russians were never able to get with the Warsaw Pact, they would get through breaking up the EU. It is very much a frightening prospect.”

Mr Rumbold said many veterans feared the impact that Brexit will have on the UK’s armed forces, warning that a no-deal outcome would decimate the military.

He said: “We wouldn’t have the prosperity we have now through being members of the EU, we therefore wouldn’t have the tax and revenues that we have, we wouldn’t be able to maintain our armed forces and we would be prey for anybody who wanted to come in. We would be reduced to a country like Romania or somewhere like that – an agricultural backwater.”

“If Brexit came we would go downhill quite fast. People would be very poor again and all the achievements we’ve made over the last 40 years would start to unravel... When you start to not enjoy all the fruits of peace, when they wither on the vine and fall away, then people start to get angry.”

A no-deal Brexit would turn Britain into a “third-rate country and have a catastrophic impact on the economy, jobs and investment”, he added, warning that leaving the EU without an agreement would lead to the armed forces having to step in to help protect food and medicine supplies and leave the UK “something like a Central American or South American country”.

Mr Rumbold also hit out at Eurosceptic Tory MPs who have frequently used military comparisons when talking about Brexit. Senior Tory Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg has compared leaving the EU to the battles of Agincourt, Waterloo and Trafalgar, while Boris Johnson, likely to be the next prime minister, claimed the EU was giving the UK “punishment beatings”. Mark Francois MP, another vocal Brexiteer and a former army reservist, claimed Britain would not be “bullied” by Germans.

Asked about their language, the RAF veteran said: “It’s totally inappropriate and it’s disgusting. These people have no idea – they’ve never served, most of them, in the armed forces at all. They’ve never been on active service and they don’t really know the terror of that or the fear of it. They should be ashamed of themselves.”