When a drone struck a Royal Air Force base in Cyprus on Sunday night, the UK was forced to reconsider its hands-off approach to America’s war with Iran.
In a recorded TV address on Sunday evening, Sir Keir Starmer said he had agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites, adding “British lives” had been put at risk. On Tuesday, the government said it would scramble a warship, HMS Dragon, to the region.
But the intended display of naval might has yet to take place, with the warship still in Portsmouth where it is expected to remain until at least next week. It’s a delay that has left MoD officials “fuming” and exposed previous financially motivated decisions over staff funding – including agreements with contractors to not work out of hours.
Under the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, which handed independence to Cyprus, the UK has a legal obligation to ensure the island’s security. But the Cypriot government has said it was “disappointed” in Britain, and has been forced to draft in help from France.
It is also thought to be the first time since 1980 that no Royal Navy ships have been stationed in the Gulf after years of scaling back British presence in the region. Admiral Lord Alan West, who served as First Sea Lord between 2002 and 2006, previously described the decision to bring home the last remaining vessel as a “terrible error”.
HMS Dragon is one of the Royal Navy’s six Type 45 Destroyers – three of which are in various stages of readiness, while the remaining three are undergoing maintenance.
Described by the Navy as “one of the most advanced warships in the world”, the vessel is equipped with the Sea Viper anti-air missile system and manned by a crew of around 200 people.
It is currently being loaded with ammunition having recently come out of maintenance. It is understood it was in dry dock being refitted earlier this week.
Professor Kevin Rowlands, a former senior Royal Navy officer and Captain, who now works for the defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said each ship has a declared “readiness” level that tells politicians how many days it would take until it is ready to set sail.
He told The Independent there would “always” have been a basic level of supplies on the ship in order to adhere to that readiness level and that the prime minister would have been aware of the vessel’s state when the decision to deploy it was made.
“If we wanted something earlier or quicker there would be ways of doing that,” he said.
He added rather than being an issue of unpreparedness, the situation highlights how the UK’s strategic priorities have turned towards Russia and Nato in recent years.
“The UK, through successive defence reviews have made some strategic choices,” he said. “It’s Nato first. It’s the North Atlantic, it’s the high North. The principal adversary is Russia.
“And so if so those choices have been made, that has meant a drawdown of fewer forces in other regions including the Middle East. Every time you make a choice, sod’s law is it’s going to be the wrong one, but then you’ve got to accept the consequences which are you’re not necessarily going to be there straight away.”
Other Navy voices said they believe a lack of funding has resulted in an unpreparedness for action. Commodore Steve Prest, former director of Royal Navy acquisition, told BFBS Forces News the Navy’s fight to keep its “full structure” has been a “read budgetary challenge”.
“With the fleet that we have got, the ageing Type 23s in particular, and to an extent the Type 45s, have suffered from a lack of spares and a lack of maintenance,” he said.
“So getting them out in sufficient numbers at sufficient readiness has been a problem.”
The Independent also understands that ministers had to intervene after contractor Serco raised question marks over service crew members working at the weekend on HMS Dragon.
It is understood armed forces minister Al Carns had to step in over a money-saving tweak to the servicing contract in 2025 that removed overtime work, including weekend working, on the ship.
MoD sources told The Independent contract changes were down to the department’s need to find £2.6bn of in year savings for this financial year.
Before the issue was resolved, an MoD source told The Independent: “People are fuming here. It is not on for a contractor to work to rule in these circumstances.”
By Thursday afternoon, both the Royal Navy and Serco confirmed work was going ahead. In statements they both insisted the contract does provide for overtime when necessary, including weekend work.
But Prospect, a trade union representing UK defence workers, warned this week the overtime ban had slowed down the preparation already.
Earlier, this week Mr Carns also admitted on Sky News the battleship was previously being prepared for a different purpose, so adjustments to its set up had been required.
Some have also questioned why the UK did not send a warship to the region sooner. The Spectator reported Sir Keir was first asked by the US about the use of UK bases to attack Iran on 11 February, 17 days before Israel and the US struck Tehran and killed the country’s leader Ali Khamenei on 28 February.
“You could see the build-up, it was unlikely to be without consequences,” Commodore Prest told BFBS Forces News. “We could and should have seen this coming.”
He added he believes on a strategic level, the UK has taken “our eye off the ball”.
But Prof Rowlands said forward planning happens “all the time” in the armed forces, and that the Navy will have been preparing “a month or two in advance” for potential action in the Middle East.
“Everybody would have seen and known about the US buildup of forces in the region, so it wasn’t a complete surprise one morning that it happened,” he said.
“The options to do something would have been given and whether those options are then taken or not is a is a different matter. If the option had been taken earlier and the ship had been readied and sailed, then the message that that would have sent was that we were part of the operation and that’s not the political position of the UK.
“So there’s a balance to be had there.”
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We are reinforcing our defensive presence in the Eastern Mediterranean with four additional Typhoon jets to Qatar. Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters armed with Martlet drone-busting missiles are arriving in Cyprus.
“They will reinforce our RAF Typhoons, F-35B jets, ground-based counter-drone teams, radar systems, and Voyager refuelling aircraft already deployed. Our jets are flying continuous sorties to defend against indiscriminate Iranian strikes threatening UK people, interests, and bases.
“The Royal Navy are working as fast as possible to prepare HMS Dragon for deployment, including resupplying her air defence missiles at our ammunition facility in HMNB in Portsmouth.”
