Donaldson asks Sunak to consider paper calling for Derry as base for Royal Navy and NATO

The British Prime Minister said he would be ‘delighted’ to examine Policy Exchange’s ‘Closing the Back Door’ paper when asked about it by the DUP leader at Westminster.

The document, authored by Marcus Solarz Hendriks and Harry Halem, says ‘the government should resurrect the Derry naval base, either fitted with its own airfields, or the reinstitution of Joint Helicopter Command (JHC) Aldergrove’s aircraft deployment capabilities, for maritime patrol missions to the NW’.

It adds that the ‘Derry base, along with other facilities in NI, should be fully integrated into our national defence command structure, expanding our strategic options in the north’.

Messrs. Hendriks and Halem claim Russia is ‘exploring ways to target western critical undersea infrastructure around the UK, and further north’ and that ‘to coordinate our collective response with our partners, we must respond in turn with a greater Royal Navy and RAF presence in the region’.

The paper mentions Derry nine times, referring to its role as a vital WW2 base.

"In a move which would prove decisive in the Battle of the Atlantic, the US clandestinely deployed several hundred ‘advisors’ to HMS Ferret, the British shore establishment at its new naval base at Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

"The UK ultimately survived the U-Boat threat with an empowered Coastal Command, and enormous expenditure into developing maritime patrol and convoy escorting capabilities at and around Londonderry, enabling its forces eventually to cover the ‘Mid-Atlantic Gap’,” it states.

The policy document laments the withdrawal of the Royal Navy from Derry in 1970 and the RAF from Ballykelly in 1971 and complains that ‘without a naval and air forward presence to the left of the Irish Sea, the UK’s capacity to police the Western Approaches, and deploy further towards the Greenland- Iceland UK is limited’.

“Maritime patrol of these waters, and by extension the Eastern Atlantic, depend on rapid naval deployment to interdict hostile intrusion. As shown, major transatlantic undersea cables pass through this region en route to the UK and the European Continent.

"The Derry naval base was perfectly located for maritime policing deployment, which has become a renewed imperative due to the array of threats Russia poses in the maritime domain,” the paper claims.

The document is disparaging towards Ireland’s policy of neutrality referring to its ‘chronically insufficient Defence Forces, and porous security state [that] render it an unreliable strategic ally’

It mentions Sinn Féin dozens of times in mostly negative terms and refers to ‘the looming spectre of a Sinn Féin government next year’.

In the British House of Commons on Wednesday Mr. Donaldson asked Mr. Sunak if he would consider its contents.

"Securing peace in an unstable world is vital for all of us, so will the Prime Minister examine the findings of a recent report by Policy Exchange that calls for NI to play an even greater role in the defence of our nation?” he asked.

Mr. Sunak replied: “I would be delighted to examine the findings of the report, and I have seen, with my own visits, the vital role that NI is playing through the location of firms such as Thales and Harland & Wolff.”

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