The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire & Wiltshire Regiment –The Fight Goes On

Wiltshire MPs Michael Ancram (Devizes), Robert Key (Salisbury) and Andrew Murrison (Westbury) met Major General Robin Grist at the Regiment’s Salisbury HQ on Saturday to plan how to save the Regiment in the light of the partial climb-down by the Secretary of State for Defence on 9th March.

General Grist explained that ‘the golden thread’ of the Regiment’s heritage would be kept by amalgamating one third of the regiment with the Devon and Dorset Regiment, another third with the Light Division and the final third would disperse into the rest of the Army.

But General Grist insisted that The RGBW has not been ‘saved’ and the objective remains to fight the break-up and keep the RGBW as a complete battalion.

The three MPs confirmed that it is official Conservative Party policy to increase the size of the Army and to increase the Defence budget by £2.7 billion a year. The Conservatives will keep the Regiment as it is.

Robert Key said, “The RGBW is a very fine Regiment. They can always be relied on to do the difficult tasks well – and they will deploy on operations in Afghanistan in the autumn. This popular local Regiment continues to recruit in our area. The message is simple – if the Conservatives win, the RGBW wins too. If not, RGBW goes.”