Build the Brexitannia! New royal yacht will boost British trade power, Boris tells MPs

  • Boris Johnson said Royal Yacht Britannia would ‘add greatly’ to UK’s ‘soft power’
  • It was decommissioned in 1997 under Tony Blair’s Labour government
  • No 10 last night appeared lukewarm on official backing for the project

Boris Johnson yesterday signalled he backs building a new royal yacht to boost Britain’s international influence after Brexit.

The Foreign Secretary insisted a new Royal Yacht Britannia would ‘add greatly’ to the UK’s ‘soft power’.

It was the first time the plan has been openly backed by a minister in the House of Commons.

However, Mr Johnson admitted a new yacht was unlikely to get taxpayer funding.

No 10 last night appeared lukewarm on official backing for the project. Britannia was decommissioned in 1997 under Tony Blair’s Labour government.

The Royal Yacht Britannia, pictured above, was decommissioned in 1997 under Tony Blair¿s Labour government

The Royal Yacht Britannia, pictured above, was decommissioned in 1997 under Tony Blair’s Labour government

The issue was raised in the Commons by Tory MP Jake Berry, who asked if Mr Johnson ‘would acknowledge that one of the ultimate ways in which we could project the soft power and prestige of Britain around the globe is to commission a new royal yacht for Her Majesty The Queen’.

Mr Berry said the yacht could become a ‘floating trade mission used by industry around the globe in the interest of our nation’.

Mr Johnson replied: ‘It is my view that it would indeed add greatly to the soft power of this country, a soft power which is already very considerable.

‘The new Britannia should not be a call on the taxpayer. If it can be done privately I am sure it will attract overwhelming support.

‘It is one of a number of measures that I am sure this Government would be able to consider.’

Boris Johnson, pictured above, is the first minister to back the plans in the House of Commons 

Boris Johnson, pictured above, is the first minister to back the plans in the House of Commons 

Afterwards, Mr Berry said: ‘The Government is finally beginning to recognise the value a new royal yacht can make to Britain and to her trading around the world after Brexit.’

The running costs of a new yacht are estimated at £10million a year. Commodore Anthony Morrow, the last commanding officer of Britannia, told the Daily Telegraph the Government was ‘clearly aware of the significance of a future royal yacht supporting UK business interests at home and abroad’.

A source in No 10, which previously said a new royal yacht was ‘not on the agenda’, made clear there had been no policy change.

Britannia is now a tourist attraction docked in Edinburgh, while the Queen charters yachts at a much lower cost.

 

An advert for UK plc that was always the hottest ticket in town: How I see it by ROBERT HARDMAN

From the Hudson River to the Persian Gulf, her pulling power was the stuff of legend.

Invite the world’s busiest and most powerful business leaders to breakfast, lunch or dinner in the swankiest restaurant and you might get a handful of takers. But invite them for a drink in the Royal Yacht and there would be a 100 per cent ‘Yes, please’.

And that was when Britannia did not even have a member of the Royal Family on board – like the day, in 1993, when she staged a trade day in Bombay and contracts worth £1billion were signed. When she was due in port carrying the Queen, the British ambassador was suddenly the most popular person in the entire country.

So Boris Johnson was entirely right yesterday to say a new royal yacht ‘would add greatly to the soft power of this country’. As a royal correspondent in the days when Britannia was still circumnavigating the globe every year, I witnessed it time and again.

When the Royal Yacht brought the Queen in to Cape Town to be greeted by Nelson Mandela or carried the leaders of the free world to Normandy for the 50th anniversary of D-Day it elevated important moments to spectacular, historic occasions.

The yacht was a statement as well as a floating embassy-cum-trade platform. Like her most famous passenger, Britannia was dependable, instantly recognisable and stylish without being ostentatious.

There was not a gold tap in sight. Her drawing room had the feel of a country vicarage rather than a palace.

Yet even if she sailed into a port heaving with cruise liners, it was the modest Glasgow-built ship which always drew the crowds. But, in the end, it was not old age which did for her but the politicians. And it is the politicians who remain the biggest stumbling block to any replacement.

In 1994, it was clear that she would soon need a complete refit at a time when both the Monarchy and the Tory government were going through a bad patch. So, John Major announced that she would be decommissioned in 1997, while making no firm decision on a replacement.

Shortly before the 1997 election, however, the Tories decided to make a new royal yacht a manifesto pledge. In doing so, they neglected to secure the agreement of a resurgent Opposition who were only too happy to make it an election issue.

When Tony Blair’s New Labour won by a landslide, the yacht was doomed. A tearful Queen joined the rest of the Royal Family at Portsmouth to say farewell. Here was a ship she had launched, named, helped design and in which her young family had some of their happiest moments.

More than a decade later, when I asked Mr Blair about that episode, he had a confession: ‘After we’d agreed to get rid of it, I actually went on it and I remember thinking, “That was such a mistake to have done that.”’ But any new yacht would, first of all, need the support of the public and main political parties – and it is inconceivable the present Labour leadership would concur.

Crucially, it would also need the support of the Royal Family and that should not be taken for granted either. The Queen will not have forgotten the way that she and her yacht became a political football.

Even if it were built with private funds, there would be many major hurdles – even the word ‘yacht’, with its connotations of idle pleasure. The irony is that a new yacht could be a huge asset for post-Brexit Britain. But it would also require a passionate and determined political champion as well as a very skilled financial one.

It’s a great idea, Boris – one for which this paper has campaigned keenly in recent years. But don’t hold your breath.

 

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