ORGANISERS of a campaign to save Scottish regiments from being merged under proposed army reforms yesterday called on Scotland’s most senior military commander to resign.

Lieutenant-General Sir Alistair Irwin, Colonel Commandant of the Scottish Division, had failed in his duty to protect the interests of the infantry regiments after he had drawn up the plan to amalgamate the smaller ones, they said.

Under proposals being considered by army chiefs, the six Scottish regiments, all of whom consist of only one battalion, could be merged into larger regimental formations.

The six regiments are: The King’s Own Scottish Borderers, The Royal Scots, The Black Watch, The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, The Royal Highland Fusiliers and The Highlanders. The single-battalion regiments in England are facing the same restructuring scheme.

The Save the Scottish Regiments campaign, formed recently to fight the proposed changes, said that General Irwin had written the strategy paper advocating the end of single-battalion regiments last year when his own regiment, The Black Watch, was fighting in Iraq. General Irwin was commissioned into the regiment more than 30 years ago.

Jeff Duncan of the Save the Scottish Regiments said that it was an “insult to the soldiers of Scotland’s regiments” that General Irwin was in a position to represent their interests and yet planned “to destroy their heritage”.

The regimental reforms were announced last month when Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, detailed wide-ranging cuts in all three Armed Forces.

For the Army, it was revealed that four infantry battalions — one in Scotland and three in England — out of the existing 40 were to be axed; and the 19 regiments with only one battalion to their name could find themselves being amalgamated into larger units of two or three battalions.

Supporting the Scottish campaign, Colonel Clive Fairweather, a former commanding officer of The King’s Own Scottish Borderers, who also served with the SAS, said: “We need to retain at least the infantry strength we have at the moment to meet our global commitments.”

One suggestion is that Scotland’s six infantry units be merged to form a three- battalion Highland Regiment and a two-battalion Lowland Regiment.

The surviving regiments have been given the nickname “The Jackson Five”, after General Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, who has ordered the changes to the structure of the Army.

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