That question has been asked from time to time. One reason is that it would have been unfair to CAFFUK members to have their pre-1975 pension grievance submerged in the many current issues involving service personnel in the first decade of this 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.
BAFF was not in any way, shape or form based on CAFFUK. BAFF and its Constitution were based on consultation with serving personnel and veterans, research in the UK and allied countries, visits to organisations such as the trade union reps at GCHQ, and a leading QC's advice on constructing a lawful representative organisation for serving personnel.
BAFF did at an early stage offer to support CAFFUK's pre-1975 pension campaign – but only if they wanted – to which the CAFFUK response was their unfortunate trademark dispute.
During the trademark dispute, CAFFUK eventually offered to merge our formally registered nonprofit "Company Limited by Guarantee" into their unincorporated club or association. But they stressed the need under their rules to reserve all elected positions to those 'of and below' the ranks of Lieutenant Commander (RN), Lieutenant Colonel (RM or Army) and Squadron Leader (RAF).
When BAFF 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 continued to insist that their information was accurate – and that it was MOD-sourced.
As the quoted ranks weren't equivalent, the MOD wasn't the source either.
As proposed by CAFFUK, the restriction by rank wouldn't have excluded any BAFF Executive Council member at the time if the limit was fixed at Lieutenant Colonel or equivalent (NATO code OF-4), but would have ruled out two of the 15 Executive Council members if the limit was fixed at Squadron Leader or equivalent (NATO code OF-3).
[For formal equivalence tables see MOD, Key to Rank Codes, April 2019, which aligns RN, Army and RAF ranks to NATO OF/OR codes. Or see graphic from BFBS.]
So it was reasonable to ask CAFF to clarify which rank levels were to be excluded.
The dealbreaker therefore wasn't the principle of some rank restriction, rather it was CAFFUK's inability to take on board a friendly request for clarification, or even to consider the possibility of an understandable mistake on their part. No collaboration about complex current issues would have been possible under such a handicap.
It was obvious from this and other examples that the problem went deeper than a simple misunderstanding of the rank structure, so the correspondence ended there.
