14-05-2025
The Navy leadership is in crisis, but the Service itself is fine
There is currently a crisis among our Navy's top leaders. The outgoing First Sea Lord – the head of the Service – Admiral Sir Ben Key, has been asked to 'step back' while the claim of affair with a subordinate officer is being investigated. Meanwhile, the person most likely to replace him, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins of the Royal Marines, is one of the subjects of a BBC Panorama documentary which suggests that he failed to correctly report alleged war crimes while serving as Director of Special Forces. The MoD responded that there was no evidence for these claims.
Each of these, on its own, would amount to a significant scandal. That they have emerged simultaneously – just as the Strategic Defence Review is about to be published – is damaging. It also means we are now in conspiracy-theory open season.
How important is this current crisis, and what can be done about it?
You may have noticed I said 'Navy's leaders' and not 'naval leadership.' I firmly believe the latter is in good shape. The problem the Royal Navy now has to address – while unpicking this mess and its surrounding conspiracies – is: why would anyone believe that?
The allegations surrounding Sir Ben, which are still under investigation, are particularly troubling given the lead he took on confronting behavioural scandals during his time as First Sea Lord, not least last year's investigation into 'misogyny, bullying and other unacceptable behaviours' in the submarine service. Some of that conduct was horrific and brought the Service into disrepute. What Admiral Key is alleged to have done here is far less serious, though it isn't negligible.
As one who formerly worked in the Navy's comms department, I'd also have to say this story has been terribly handled. It would make a good episode of The Thick of It – though it wouldn't be funny, because there are real people involved. Malcolm Tucker, the fictional head of No 10 communications in that series, would not be impressed – nor, as I understand it, was the real No. 10 in this case.
At the root of the issue is the fact that the Ministry of Defence communications machine protects the reputation of the ministers above that of any particular service – or the people in it, no matter how senior. That, along with never doing anything that might interfere with the No.10 comms grid, is hardwired in. In this case, the idea that the Navy might want to synchronise external announcements with internal communications – to assure those who must now lead their teams through the fallout – never crossed their minds.
Then there's the delusion that you can suppress damaging news through careful stage management. You can't. Put out a softening statement first, by all means, but be honest with the wording – don't say 'stepped back for private reasons' when that's only tangentially true.
Worse still, different branches within Defence ran different comms tracks, which meant two papers ended up racing to publish first. Not their fault – it's their job. But by losing control of the story, it broke mid-afternoon Friday – earlier than planned. By Sunday, the journalists who'd missed the scoop were under pressure to find new angles, many of which weren't true.
And still we don't really know what happened, how serious it was, or who was involved. Had more information been released early, identities could have been protected as part of the trade-off. Now the story will just run and run as new details inevitably leak, and no one will escape. What bothers me is: if we can't manage something like this properly, what happens when something really awful happens – like losing a ship, or going to war?
Meanwhile, Panorama airs its documentary into what happened under General Jenkins's command in Afghanistan. This has been a long time coming – documentaries like this always are. And the inquiry led by Sir Charles Haddon-Cave into 'unlawful activity by UK Special Forces' has been running since December 2022. General Gwyn has been the target of leaks before. That time it was to undermine his candidacy for the top job: Chief of Defence Staff.
However, given the lead time for Panorama, I don't believe this and Admiral Key's story breaking simultaneously is a coordinated attack on the Navy. No one has the ability to manipulate media timelines to that extent. Some may take delight in it, but that's not the same thing.
Still, the Navy now faces a dilemma over Jenkins's candidacy for First Sea Lord: expedite, delay (which could be for a very long time), or cancel. These are big decisions, not helped by the fact that two of the people at the level that would normally make decisions of this magnitude are now implicated. Hopefully this appearance on the BBC would have been factored in when he was chosen and so I suspect he will therefore be officially nominated soon, which will be good for the service. Nevertheless, with the General likely to attract regular headlines as both Panorama and the Haddon Cave enquiry head towards their respective conclusions, careful reputational handling will be required for some time to come.
There is some good to be plucked from the mess.
Operationally, this won't matter. Take the Navy and Joint Teams in Northwood overseeing the Carrier Strike Group as it nears the decision to enter the Houthi missile envelope in the Red Sea; they'll see this as no more than a minor distraction. Easily 98 per cent of the RN functions day to day without interaction with the head of service. Some will be annoyed, as will their families, but most will just crack on.
Likewise at the strategic level, whilst the timing adjacent to the Strategic Defence Review culmination is unfortunate, it won't make any material difference. It's not like the Navy will receive less money as a punishment – it won't receive any in the first place.
The real damage is to public perception, especially when public understanding of what the Navy is for is already so low. That hinges on whether these events are seen as isolated or endemic. In 25 years of service, I'd say – vehemently – it's the former. And that's not the Kool-Aid talking; I spent those years surrounded by good people doing hard jobs in extraordinary conditions. But outsiders only hear about the bad eggs – and lately, there have been too many. Now this.
So, the Navy and Defence have a job to do – starting now – to convince people otherwise.
If these two organisations can't do that together, beginning with communications and grounded in education, then they will fail
