UK Armed forces to get new guidance on how to use ‘inclusive language’

Pictured Admiral Sir Tony Radakin

The new guide includes more inclusive ways to address disability, race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation and social mobility

By Dominic Nicholls, DEFENCE AND SECURITY EDITOR

The armed forces are to be given new guidance on “inclusive language” after the Defence Secretary said he is “unhappy” with the current advice.

Military personnel from all three services had been told to avoid using phrases such as “crippled with debt” or “blind drunk”.

The MoD said its Inclusive Language Guide 2021 was a “practical toolkit” to help servicemen and women understand why “certain words or use of language is hurtful or non-inclusive”.

A senior defence source told the Telegraph: “The Defence Secretary and Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) have been clear that the UK armed forces must modernise to tackle the threats of the future. That includes our approach to our people who are critical to that task.

“The Defence Secretary is unhappy with the current approach set out in the guide. A revised version will be published in the coming weeks.”

The guide will be taken down from the MoD website while changes are made. The guide, produced by the MoD’s Diversity and Inclusion Directorate, denies being “an attempt to police language” or “restrict your personal style of communication”, but was created to help staff “speak more powerfully, precisely and respectfully”, according to the Mail on Sunday tot recommended avoiding phrases such as “deaf to our pleas” in case it offended the disabled.

The 30-page pamphlet said the words “woman” and “female” “mean different things but are often used interchangeably”, adding: “Referring to women as females is perceived by many as reducing a woman to her reproductive parts and abilities.

“Not all women are biologically female, and the conflation of ‘female’ to ‘woman’ erases gender-nonconforming people and members of the trans community.”

“The women in the platoon” is said to be a more inclusive phrase than “the females in the platoon”.

The guide includes more inclusive ways to address disability, race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation and social mobility.

The MoD wants personnel to put the “person-first” when speaking to others, only referencing characteristics when they are relevant and doing so in specific ways.

Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace pictured in May CREDIT: Anadolu

References to race or disability should only be used when relevant to the context of any discussion, the guide states, adding it is important to ask how others self-identify.

As far as possible neutral language should be used at all times.

The recommendations aim to be non-confrontational. The guide advises personnel challenging others on their language to be polite and prepared to “explain the logic” behind their views.

Equally, those being challenged should not “take it personally” and should support junior peers to raise challenges with more senior colleagues, according to the guide.

Push for greater diversity

The Telegraph understands there are no plans to disband or redirect the MoD’s Diversity and Inclusion Directorate, which was responsible for the guide.

The news came as the new CDS, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, said the push for greater diversity in the military is not about being “woke”, but addressing the “woeful” lack of women and ethnic minorities in the forces.

In his first speech in the post, Adm Radakin said: “This is not about wokefulness. It is about woefulness. The woefulness of too few women.

“The woefulness of not reflecting the ethnic, religious and cognitive diversity of our nation.

“And the woefulness of not following our own values, whether respect for each other or the simple integrity of claiming expenses.”