ALEX Salmond was last night embroiled in a row over the ongoing campaign to restore Scotland's independent regiments.
The First Minister held a reception for members of Restore Our Army Regiments (Roar) at Edinburgh Castle.
But senior figures within the Royal Regiment of Scotland (RRS) – the unit created by amalgamating six independent regiments – said the campai
gn was undermining the morale of soldiers serving in combat zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The comments are widely seen as tacit condemnation of the First Minister, whose party remains committed to reforming the regiments as separate bodies.
About 160 Roar supporters, mainly former servicemen, attended the event last night in the castle's historic Great Hall. The castle is also the headquarters of the RRS.
Colonel Stephen Cartwright, the new commander of the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, RRS, said: "This campaign (Roar] will do nothing to improve recruitment in Scotland. It just creates uncertainty and doesn't allow us to get over the clear message that the Army has moved on.
"The serving soldiers of this country are not being served by this campaign.
"I am trying to improve facilities here at Fort George (the battalion's base near Inverness], provide stability, better manning and improved pay and this is not helpful. No one here is saying to me that I will only serve another two years unless we go back to the old regiments."
Alastair Campbell, regimental secretary to the RRS, said: "Roar are not serving soldiers and they do not speak for serving soldiers. In a way, they are undermining serving soldiers by what they are doing.
"We may not like what happened, but it did happen. Now we need to move on."
One of the concerns of the RRS, whose colonel-in-chief is the Queen, is that the continuation of the campaign will further damage recruitment. Official figures reveal recruitment in Scotland fell from 1,117 in 2005-6 to 741 in 2007-8.
In 2005, under plans to streamline the British infantry, six independent Scottish regiments, with a total of around 3,000 troops, were reduced to five and then amalgamated as under the flag of a new RRS.
The controversial plan, ordered by senior Army commanders, went ahead despite a fiercely fought campaign by former servicemen and opposition politicians. As a concession, the Army said a 'golden thread' – symbolised by keeping the old names for the new battalions – would remain in place to link the old regiments with their past.
But the SNP, then in opposition at Holyrood, pledged to restore the independence of the regiments. Roar spokesman Jeff Duncan said:
"The Army is absolutely terrified because there has been so much effort going on to suppress the old regimental identities."
A spokesperson for the First Minister said that the reception was "one of a range" he had hosted at Edinburgh Castle for veterans and welfare organisations.
"It is part of the process of Scotland's military family coming together again after the argument there has been about maintaining commitments to the golden thread tradition in Scotland."
But a Ministry of Defence source said: "Alex Salmond is in danger of playing politics on this issue."
The full article contains 529 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
