The question used to be asked from time to time.
One reason is that it would have been unfair to CAFFUK veterans to have their core pension grievance inevitably given lower priority than the many current issues involving service personnel in the 21st century, such as –
support for the wounded, single and family accommodation, compensation, manning control, pay and allowances, electoral participation, inquests and inquiries, safety of former local staff, ECHR controversies and so much else.
Note: direct and indirect references in this article to 'BAFF' relate to the former BAFF (2006) Ltd, but are retained here for archival purposes.
CAFFUK had been formed specifically to campaign for pensions for a group of veterans who left the service before April 1975 without completing a full career. Although CAFF subsequently widened their constitutional remit, in fairness we never saw much evidence of their engagement in actual issues affecting current personnel or recent veterans.
BAFF cordially offered to support CAFFUK's pre-1975 service pension campaign if they wanted, but CAFFUK responded by sending dire threats of legal action, which they also made public on their two websites.
At one stage during the ensuing trademark dispute, CAFFUK, while rejecting an approach by BAFF about ending the dispute, offered some kind of merger instead. We agreed to at least hear what they had to say.
While conceding that all ranks would be permitted to join, CAFFUK proceeded to stress the paramount importance of reserving all elected positions in any merged association to those 'of and below' the ranks of Lieutenant Commander (RN), Lieutenant Colonel (RM or Army) and Squadron Leader (RAF), as set out in the CAFFUK constitution.
Although no BAFF Executive Council member actually held a current or former service rank above those levels, the ranks quoted by CAFFUK aren’t equivalent across the services. Applying CAFFUK's rank restriction differently to different branches of the armed forces would have been patently unfair, and would also have appeared ill-informed to potential members.
But the CAFFUK correspondent remained adamant that the quoted ranks were equivalent – and that his information was MOD-sourced, which was obviously not the case.
It was clear from this, and from other examples of the same approach, that the problem went deeper than a simple one-off misunderstanding of the service rank structure. Any question of a merger ended there.
Before the trademark dispute, BAFF's offer to support CAFFUK's pension campaign had included this offer to help publicise their parliamentary representations which were understood to be in preparation at that time:
If appropriate BAFF might, by prior arrangement with you, be able to issue a wholly supportive statement which would at the same time avoid any confusion between the two organisations. This has been your campaign and it is you and your colleagues who deserve the credit.
When CAFF's "Researched Report" was published the following year and shown to us by an unimpressed Member of Parliament, it was obvious that BAFF could never have endorsed the document and furthermore, it had become apparent that CAFF were never likely to accept any fact or suggestion from us. Despite BAFF's best intentions, there sadly never was any serious possibility of cooperation.