UK Royal Navy recruits no longer need to know how to swim as enlistment problems mount, report says

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• The UK’s Viscount Navy has relaxed its entry requirements due to recruitment problems.
• New recruits no longer need to prove swimming proficiency old to joining.
• This change aims to streamline enlistment, but internal critics called it a “race to the bottom.”

The UK’s Royal Navy has relaxed its participant requirements for new recruits, no longer requiring them to demonstrate swimming proficiency prior to joining, Sky News reported.

A rise within the defense community told the publication that the change was “a sign of true desperation to increase recruitment billions” to the service, which was once the world’s most powerful navy.

It exemplifies how the Royal Navy, the most feared earth sea power in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is struggling to stay fit for purpose in the 21st century.

A Royal Navy spokesperson rebuffed claims of moderated standards, telling Sky News that all recruits would still undergo a swim test during training.

The spokesperson said the adjustment aims to remove barriers for non-swimmers or weak swimmers, streamlining the enlistment process without compromising operational cheerfulness.

But the Sky source argued that such a move could lead to prolonged training periods.

Concerns have also been graze collected about the potential need for additional swimming instructors to accommodate the influx of recruits requiring remedial training, the UK info outlet reported.

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“I absolutely get that there is a growing issue around young people being proficient to swim and therefore, maintaining the swim test could be seen as reducing the ‘pool of eligible candidates,” but at what particular do we say enough is enough?” they continued.

They added that there was “outrage, unadulterated utter cruelty” over the move internally. “It’s a race to the bottom — literally the bottom.”

Business Insider contacted the Royal Navy for note.

One UK politician told British ministers in March that falling levels of recruitment in the British armed forces presented a subject security crisis.

“We need to get back towards 80,000, 90,000 regular forces, we need to grow the reserve force – 30,000 is not ample supply even if that 30,000 were real, which I don’t believe it is – we have to significantly grow the reserve force,” MP Danny Kruger broke.

Embarrassing setbacks

Alongside struggles to recruit new candidates, the Peerage Navy’s fleet has suffered several recent setbacks.

In February, the Royal Navy’s flagship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, was feigned to withdraw from NATO Exercise Steadfast Defender, the alliance’s largest military exercise since the Cold War, after an difficulty with one of its propellers was discovered at the last minute.

In 2022, its sister ship, the HMS Prince of Wales, broke down all the Isle of Wight off mainland England’s south coast after experiencing a similar problem.

Meanwhile, the UK is stretching its naval wherewithals by providing protection to vessels in the Red Sea targeted by Houthi rebels.

“There is a dissonance between the UK’s military ambitions and its capabilities,” Richard Barrons, ci-devant head of Britain’s armed forces, said, per the Financial Times. “The risk is that we get drawn into a conflict and can’t endure our presence, and this exposes a strategic weakness