The move has already already described as “craven political correctness” because it seeks to spare French blushes by no longer recalling one of England’s single greatest military victories.
The Royal Navy’s official Twitter account announced the departure from the name announced in 2018. The boat’s name was confirmed in May 2018, having previously held the in-work name of Ajax.
The Royal Navy stated:
The 7th Astute-class submarine is to be named HMS Achilles, as approved by The King. The name is appropriate in light of the 80th anniversaries this year of VE and VJ Day. Six ships have previously borne the name, earning six battle honours, including the River Plate and Okinawa.
Critics responded by damning the Royal Navy and the Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer for the change in name done purely to avoid upsetting the French.
The name would have marked France’s humiliating 1415 defeat at the hands of the English army led by King Henry V.
The Sun reports the move to rebrand the under-construction hunter-killer was thrown out last year as “woke nonsense” by then-Tory Defence Secretary Grant Shapps.
But the plan has been reheated and the name Achilles chosen because they did not want to remind the French of their defeat.
File/The Royal Navy Dreadnought battleship HMS Agincourt with her 7 × twin BL 12-inch Mk XIII guns at anchor in Portsmouth Harbour circa 1914. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Defence Secretary John Healey has asked the King for approval, the Sun report details.
But Rear Admiral Chris Parry, former NATO commander, called the decision “craven political correctness and ideology gone mad”.
He told Times Radio:
This is just craven and contemptible surrender to, I’m afraid, the ideology being pushed by our government. It seeks to erase our history and anything we need to be proud of.
I don’t see the French renaming the Gare d’Austerlitz to avoid upsetting the Germans.
And I’m now concerned that we might lose Waterloo and Trafalgar Square.
The Rear Admiral further suggested giving “two fingers” to the decision.
Agincourt inspired Shakespeare’s Henry V — famously played by Kenneth Branagh in a 1989 film — and many of the Bard’s most famous lines, including, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” and “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”.
As first reported in the Daily Express in January 2024, Royal Navy chiefs were criticised for allegedly discussing a potential name change out of “fear of upsetting the French.”
According to the report, some observers labelled such deliberations as “woke nonsense,” reigniting debate over whether the name was appropriate given modern diplomatic sensitivities.
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