Carns a genuine military hero says minister, amid rumours of Labour leadership contest
Al Carns is a "genuine military hero" who has a bright future ahead of him in the Labour Party, a fellow defence minister has said.
Luke Pollard was speaking amid reports that claim Armed Forces Minister Mr Carns is expected to put his hat into the ring if a Labour leadership contest is triggered.
But Defence Readiness and Industry Minister Mr Pollard said former Royal Marines colonel Mr Carns and the rest of the ministerial defence team had "got a job to do" with thousands of personnel deployed around the world.
National security first
After several ministerial resignations and calls for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to resign in the wake of Labour's poor local election results last week, Mr Pollard posted on social media that he would not be resigning.
"Whatever is happening in British politics, national security is the first responsibility of government and something I take very seriously," he insisted.
"That is why I will not be resigning and will be continuing to support our efforts to rearm, rebuild our forces and protect the UK."
Given his comments, we asked Mr Pollard if he believed his colleague was putting personal ambition above the country.
Mr Pollard told BFBS Forces News: "No – I'm really proud to work alongside Al. He is a genuine military hero, someone with incredible potential.
"He has a great battlefield experience and experience of defence that he can bring to the decisions that we take as a government.
"He is a brilliant colleague and I work very closely with him and I think he's got a very bright career ahead in the Labour Party. But as a ministerial team, we've got a job to do at the moment with troops deployed around the world."
He added: "There's roughly eight-and-a-half thousand British troops deployed globally. We know that the ceasefire in the Middle East is fragile. We hope it leads to a lasting peace.
"But while we've got troops deployed that have been in recent defensive combat operations, I know that my priority is making sure they get the kit and equipment that they need and the ministerial team is focused on supporting our troops at this time."
Voters sent a message
Mr Pollard said he didn't want or expect a leadership election to be triggered. When asked how confident he was that Sir Keir would keep his job by the end of a chaotic week in Westminster, he replied: "I'm not expecting my colleagues to burn the house down.
"We've got a mess to clear up. We know that from what we've inherited, but we also recognise that the voters sent us a message in the local elections last week. We need to listen to that. We need to respond to it."
If there was to be a leadership election, I asked if Mr Pollard would be voting for Mr Carns.
"Well, I'm not expecting a leadership election to be triggered and I don't know who the candidates would be," he said.
"So I'm afraid you're not going to be able to get an exclusive of my voting in a contest that has not yet happened with candidates. We don't know who they are.
"I think – well, I know – that my preference here is for the government to stay focused on delivery."
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