Why didn't the BAFF founders join CAFFUK instead? That question has been asked from time to time.
One reason is that it would have been unfair to CAFFUK veterans to have their core pension grievance submerged in 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, and so much else.
During their unfortunate trademark dispute, CAFFUK kindly offered to merge BAFF's formally-registered nonprofit "Company Limited by Guarantee" into their unincorporated club or association. But they stressed the importance under their rules of reserving all elected positions to those 'of and below' the ranks of Lieutenant Commander (RN), Lieutenant Colonel (RM or Army) and Squadron Leader (RAF).
That wouldn't actually have affected any BAFF officials at the time, but when we pointed out that the ranks quoted weren’t actually equivalent across the services, and tried to clarify that factual point before getting to the principle, CAFFUK remained adamant that their information was accurate – and that it was MOD-sourced, which was obviously not the case.
It was clear from this and similar examples that the problem went deeper than a mere misunderstanding of the rank structure. Time-critical aspects of our work would have been impossible with CAFFUK in the loop, so the correspondence ended there.
