Oh, it has already escalated to SoS level, Arclite. From minister downwards it has been officially declared, in writing, that to issue an order to disregard mandated regulations but to sign them off as complied with is lawful, and that to disobey such an order is an offence.
I have no doubt that you are correct, that we face an impossible situation, but when did that ever stop the Royal Air Force achieving a good result? It faced total extinction post WWI. It faced total annihilation in 1940. On both occasions with good leadership it turned the situation around in its favour. I grant that this time round that the enemy within, its own Star Chamber, is as tough a nut to crack as any, but it can and has to succeed.
An Air Force riddled with unairworthiness carries the seeds of its own destruction. 62 people have died in airworthiness related accidents featured on this forum alone. The RAF lost its entire MAR fleet, and lost numerous other aircraft that had deficiencies common with yet others.
The greatest loss of all though was that of the cadre of trained and experienced engineers with Airworthiness responsibilities. Because their whole raison d'etre was knowledge of the Regulations and the importance of complying with them, the VSO's (almost solely RAF) who carried out this sabotage had no option but to divest themselves of these turbulent priests and replace them with non-engineers who were without training or experience. Within a generation all was lost, knowledge, experience, and even the Regulations themselves. The MAA has been trying to rebuild their house since by re-inventing the wheel and dreaming up new regs which are poor facsimiles of the old ones. The result is the army of apparatchiks that now purport to be Military Air Safety.
Airworthiness is primarily about continuity, about a constant process of technical auditing. Once you break that continuity, especially over a period of decades, you cannot declare any system, any aircraft, to be airworthy. That is the dilemma facing UK Military Aviation today. As I say an impossible situation, so a challenge I'll grant you, but beyond overcoming by the Royal Air Force? I refuse to believe that. We have been saved before by good leadership and we will be saved again by someone who will lead. Someone...?