{"id":1226,"date":"2009-06-02T21:40:28","date_gmt":"2009-06-02T21:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/2009\/06\/the-gurkhas-latest-victory\/"},"modified":"2020-07-19T14:27:40","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T13:27:40","slug":"the-gurkhas-latest-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/?p=1226","title":{"rendered":"The Gurkhas Latest Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chirag Patel<\/em><\/strong>
\nCurrent Affairs Correspondent, NHSF PR Team<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Gurkhas<\/a><\/p>\n

NHSF (UK) are proud to announce that, after much deliberation, all Gurkha soldiers who have served in the British Army for more than four years have gained the right to stay in the UK, as well as full pension benefits.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Nepalese soldiers, now known as the Gurkha Brigade, have been an integral part of the British Army since 1815 and are known as the finest fighting force of the British Army. However, the partition of India in 1947 paved way for the Gurkha Regiments to become an official part of the British Army. In World War One and Two, 43,000 Gurkhas lost their lives out of the 200,000 who fought in both wars. However, their numbers have sharply depleted since the end of World War Two, at its peak of 112,000 down to 3,500 soldiers. They are respected and looked up to by their peers due to their bravery and commitment to the British Army<\/p>\n

Despite being snubbed by the British Government for over 60 years, 28,000 potential solders still apply for 200 spaces each year for the elite regiments which are deployed around the world.<\/p>\n

The Gurkhas serve a maximum of 30 years, with a minimum of 15 years to receive a pension at least six times less than the rest of the Army. This was said to be justified as the living costs in Nepal are much less than they are in Britain. However, with more of the soldiers settling in the UK with their families, this caused a lot of economic hardship. In 2007, in what was seen as a partial victory, the Defence Minister of the UK at the time, Derek Twigg, announced that soldiers retiring after 1997 would get an equal pension to the rest of the Army.<\/p>\n

As the numbers of Gurkhas has seriously reduced over the years this ruling was only a victory for a minority of the Brigade. The extent of this crime like policy can only be seen with the figures, with 36,000 soldiers and their families denied access to live in the country they so bravely fought for, simply because they retired before 1997. The Labour Government\u0092s stance was that the policy should not be changed. But on 29 April 2009, the Labour Government was defeated in the House of Commons with the help of 27 Labour backbenchers who silently knew what was right and during the voting system, made the right decision.<\/p>\n

On 21 May 2009, the government read out proposals which have been accepted by the Gurkhas, which has given soldiers leaving the Gurkhas before 1997 full rights of settlement and pension, the same as those Gurkhas who have retired after 1997, as well as the rest of the British Army.<\/p>\n

NHSF (UK) would like to thank Joanna Lumley for her hard work and dedication and would like to say that Ms Joanna Lumley herself has been a fine example of how a celebrity should use their status in society for a noble and justified cause.<\/p>\n

We would also like to thank the Gurkha Brigade for the support they have given to the British Citizens for almost 200 years, and hope that they can now serve within the British Army without fear of blatant racism and no respect from the Government for many years to come.<\/p>\n

We would also like to \u0091Name and Fame\u0092 of all rebel Labour MPs who voted for the Gurkha campaign: Dianne Abbott, Ian Cawsey, Harry Cohen, Jeremy Corbyn, Paul Farrelly, Mark Fisher, Neil Gerrard, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, Joan Humble, Glenda Jackson, John McDonnell, Shona McIsaac, Andrew MacKinlay, Gordon Marsden, Bob Marshall Andrews, Julie Morgan, Nick Palmer, Stephen Pound, Nick Raynsford, Andy Reed, Linda Riordan, Alan Simpson, Andrew Smith, Paul Truswell, Keith Vaz, Robert Wareing and Mike Wood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chirag Patel Current Affairs Correspondent, NHSF PR Team NHSF (UK) are proud to announce that, after much deliberation, all Gurkha soldiers who have served in the British Army for more than four years have gained the right to stay in the UK, as well as full pension benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[738],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhsf.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}