Sending British warships to police the Strait of Hormuz is a “fantasy” because UK armed forces are already so depleted, former defence secretary Ben Wallace has warned.
Mr Wallace, who served as defence secretary under three Tory prime ministers, said such a move – which armed forces minister Luke Pollard has refused to rule out – risked “leaving our troops dangerously unprotected and overstretched”.
He urged the government to properly fund Britain’s defence and accused ministers of “taking the public for fools” after the current defence secretary John Healey insisted the UK is ready to defend itself.
The intervention came as peace talks between the US and Iran got underway in Pakistan on Saturday, hoping to solidify a fragile two-week ceasefire more than a month into Donald Trump’s Middle East war.
And Tory leader Kemi Badenoch also warned that Mr Trump’s “America First” approach to foreign policy was here to stay, and that Britain needed to react accordingly.
In a speech at the London Defence Conference, she pledged to increase the size of the British army by 20,000 if she wins back power amid growing question marks over whether Labour is serious about reaching the target of 5 per cent of GDP on defence and security spending it has committed to in the next parliament.
Sir Keir Starmer spoke to Mr Trump on Thursday night about the need for a “practical plan” to get shipping going again through the Strait, which is currently blockaded by Tehran, after the conditional ceasefire in the US-Iran conflict was announced. Mr Trump has reportedly demanded that Nato allies send warships to the troubled region in a matter of days.
Asked about the possibility of deploying the navy to the vital shipping route, Sir Ben, who served as defence secretary from 2019 to 2023, told The Independent: “These are just fantasies. They talk about troops being deployed to the Strait when they know damn well that they’ve cut their operating budgets.
“It risks leaving our troops dangerously unprotected and dangerously overstretched.
“John Healey needs to get some courage and start being prepared to have a fight with the Treasury and No 10 [for more funding], but also at the same time start being honest with the British public.”
Arguing that Mr Healey’s claim Britain is “ready” to defend itself is “palpably untrue”, Sir Ben added: “The problem is they simply will not make the tough political decisions… So we end up with very hollow platitudes and partisan comments from a Labour Party who think spin is the solution.”
MPs on both sides of the Commons have already expressed concerns over the failure of the government to publish its Defence Investment Plan.
In-year savings were blamed for a delay in sending HMS Dragon to Cyprus weeks after the Iran crisis began and the UK’s base on the island came under attack from Tehran.
And there are ongoing question marks over the reduction of the size of the UK army which is down to around 70,000, and using poor and outdated heavy vehicles and tanks.
Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told The Independent that more money needs to be spent if the government wants to “plug many of the under-resourced gaps in defence”.
“Britain is certainly still the beneficiary of strategic depth of alliances, of some pretty impressive niche capabilities within each of the services.
“But its armed forces are very much in a what you might call a transitional period, where we’re moving from an era of small wars to one where large-scale conflict is very much a believable contingency. And that process of transition is by no means complete.”
Asked about Mr Wallace’s warnings, Dr Kaushal said: “I think it’s probably true that in order to plug many of the under-resourced gaps in defence, more money than it needs to be spent than is currently being spent.”
It comes just days after a former top military commander said that the British army is so depleted it could only “seize a small market town on a good day”.
But asked at the London Defence Conference on Friday if Britain is ready to defend itself, Mr Healey responded: “Yes, and I think what I set out demonstrates just how ready our forces are when required.”
Pointing to the monitoring of three Russian submarines found operating in the North Atlantic, he added: “Whilst people are rightly concerned about the conflict in the Middle East, we’re not taking our eyes off Putin, we’re not taking our eyes off the primary threat, and we do have an armed forces that is demonstrating its capabilities to track and deter and if necessary, there are options to respond as well.”
Ms Badenoch used her speech to announce she will use welfare spending cuts to fund the biggest expansion in the size of the army since the Second World War with 6,000 more regulars and 14,000 more reserves.
“The mirror that [Trump] is holding up to Europe and that we are finding it so uncomfortable to look in is showing us that without the United States, we cannot properly defend ourselves,” she said. “At present, European strategic autonomy is a fairytale.”
“I have announced that the next Conservative government would reinstate the two-child benefit cap and spend that money on defence. That will fund the largest net increase in British troops under any government since the Second World War.
“We will use the money to recruit 6,000 regular soldiers and 14,000 reservists as well as paying for their accommodation and equipment.”
Luke Pollard, Labour minister for defence readiness and industry, responded: “Kemi Badenoch’s message is: the Tories hollowed out Britain’s defences, now put us back in charge. Nobody will take that seriously.”
The Ministry of Defence has been contacted for comment.
