![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/axing-britannia-2-0-is-another-blow-for-brexit-britain/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/TELEMMGLPICT000259985731_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqtR1WRZ4lb6BOb1-FBRpn-iNC_PwbH86OaNSIYzxn2PM-1.jpeg&description="It is Twitter 1, the Silent Majority 0." The former Cabinet minister spoke for many today as he contemplated the Government's decision to axe Boris Johnson's plans for a new £250 million national flagship. In truth Johnson's idea for a replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia – which he had been promoting in Whitehall for years – had always faced stiff headwinds from the new ship's haters on social media. And it felt somewhat inevitable that the flagship would finally be sunk by unarguable competition for the defence budget from the need to supply British arms to Ukraine to fight off its Russian invaders. In the end, Defence secretary Ben Wallace told MPs that the national flagship was being replaced by a ship to protect the UK's undersea internet cables. And who could argue with that? What has been missing from the debate about the national flagship was that its £250 million cost was intended to be down payment on hundreds of millions of pounds of hoped for investment deals over the next decades generating vital funds for UK priorities, including supporting Ukrainian troops in their battle with Russian soldiers. This was certainly the case with HMY Britannia which in its pomp would sail to some far flung corner of the globe and host "trade days" when chief executives and their partners were invited on board to sign investment deals. The yacht was estimated to have helped secure £3 billion of trade deals between 1991 and 1995. This was the idea for the new flagship and why Wallace told the designers last summer that the ship will "pay for itself over and over again". John Wood, the chief executive of Harland & Wolff, one of two shortlisted firms hoping to build it, agreed, saying last night: "We are certain that had the National Flagship gone ahead, the vessel would have returned many multiples of her build cost to the UK." There was something magical about the old yacht – with an interior originally designed by the Duke of Edinburgh – and there was hope that this){kind=link}
A new national flagship would have allowed the UK to project soft power around the world and show off its best engineering
“It is Twitter 1, the Silent Majority 0.” The former Cabinet minister spoke for many today as he contemplated the Government’s decision to axe Boris Johnson’s plans for a new £250 million national flagship.
In truth Johnson’s idea for a replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia – which he had been promoting in Whitehall for years – had always faced stiff headwinds from the new ship’s haters on social media.
And it felt somewhat inevitable that the flagship would finally be sunk by unarguable competition for the defence budget from the need to supply British arms to Ukraine to fight off its Russian invaders.
In the end, Defence secretary Ben Wallace told MPs that the national flagship was being replaced by a ship to protect the UK’s undersea internet cables. And who could argue with that?