UK National Defence Association
The UK National Defence Association is a pressure group campaigning in support of Britain's Armed Forces and calling for an increase in the UK defence budget. It is Tri-Service.
Formed in 2007 by Admiral Lord Boyce, RAF Marshal Lord Craig and former Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, its Patrons are Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, Admiral Lord West and Lord Campbell. Its Founder-President was Winston S. Churchill and Vice-Presidents include Sir Richard Dearlove, Major-General Patrick Cordingley, Colonel Tim Collins, and Colonel Bob Stewart.
Its former chief executive officer was Commander John Muxworthy. Its current Director, CEO and spokesperson is Andy Smith. Under the alias AVR Smith, Smith was a former member of the Federation of Conservative Students and the Conservative Monday Club, becoming director of the Western Goals Institute in the late 1980s, becoming good friends with WGI founder Gregory Lauder-Frost. He later became a member of the British-Israel-World Federation, who believe "all those of Anglo-Celto-Saxon descent" are direct descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
The UKNDA's 2008 policy paper, Overcoming the Defence Crisis, argues that the shrinking of the Defence budget from 5% of the UK's Gross Domestic Product in the 1980s to barely 2% in 2008 has left Britain's Armed Forces chronically under-funded and over-stretched. It calls for UK Defence policy to be "threat-driven, not budget-driven".
The organisation says it is politically neutral. However, in the 2015 general election, Smith spoke in favour of the UK Independence Party and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party's policies of spending "at least" 2% GDP on defence, criticising Britain's two major parties for not having such a commitment. In 2016, Smith warned of an EU-controlled military force, saying that such a prospect was "a cause for great concern and one that should play heavily on the minds of British people as they ponder the choice before them in the EU referendum on 23 June".
