English fishermen are taking part in a day of protests against what they say is an abject betrayal over Brexit. Protesters gathered in Plymouth, Whitstable, Hastings, Portsmouth, Milford Haven and Newcastle. Fishermen say promises of immediate control over UK waters on leaving the EU next year have been dropped.
Britain has no major warships deployed on operations beyond home waters in what has been described as an “unprecedented” absence of the vessels on the world stage. All six of the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers are docked in Portsmouth, while 12 of 13 Type 23 frigates are either at Portsmouth or Devonport.
Students from a Hampshire college in the UK have completed a giant mural paying tribute to the Royal Navy’s role in the Falklands Conflict. Twenty students from South Downs College at Waterlooville spent a week completing the 12ft square artwork on a wall in the Warrant Officers and Senior Rates Mess at HMS Excellent in Portsmouth.
Royal Navy’s newest ice patrol ship HMS Protector leaves Portsmouth this week on deployment to Antarctica, but she will be returning to Davenport, where she is to be based in the future.
Portsmouth-based frigate HMS Richmond has sailed for a routine seven months Atlantic Patrol Tasking which includes the South Atlantic. According to the official release she left Portsmouth on Monday 5 August and will maintain the continuous Royal Navy presence in the Atlantic and provide an ongoing protection and reassurance to British regions within the region.
HMS Duncan, the sixth and final of the UK’s sophisticated, new class of Type 45 destroyers, has been formally handed over to the Royal Navy by shipbuilder BAE Systems, the MOD announced today.
UK arms manufacturer BAE Systems said it was reviewing its warship business but refused to comment on a newspaper report that it was set to close the historic Portsmouth dockyard.
Soldiers from the Portsmouth area have swapped Royal duties for freezing Falkland Islands training reports the Portsmouth media. Up to 120 members of the 2nd Battalion Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment have travelled the 8,000 miles south from London to the Falkland Islands.