Kemi Badenoch brands HMS Dragon delay as 'the most embarrassing thing' to happen as Tories called 'arsonists'
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Insults have been hurled by Labour and the Conservatives over the state of the Royal Navy fleet
Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch has believes the delayed departure of HMS Dragon during the Iran war is “most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to our country” - while Labour accuse the Tories of being arsonists given the state of the force.
The leader of the opposition set out a vision to restore the fleet and quicken the pace of new warships being built during a visit to the UK Docks Marine Services facility at Victoria Quay, Gosport, on May 1. Portsmouth North MP Amanda Martin, Labour, said Ms Badenoch’s words meant nothing as the Tories “had their chance” to support British armed forces and “failed”.
Pressure is mounting to bolster the Royal Navy fleet and address capability gaps. The number of frigates has reduced to 13, soon to be 12 when HMS Richmond’s retirement is officially confirmed. Advanced Type 26 and 31 vessels are currently being built in Scotland, but are not expected to be commissioned until 2028 at the earliest and into the 2030s. All the while, half of the Type 45 destroyers are undergoing extensive refits, limiting availability.
HMS Dragon, currently in the eastern Mediterranean, was deployed after RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was hit by a kamikaze drone on March 1, in the days following the start of a US-Israel coalition attacking Iran. Concerns were raised about how long it took HMS Dragon to deploy, despite six weeks worth of working being completed in six days. The Daring-class warship left HMNB Portsmouth on March 10.
Ms Badenoch said HMS Dragon’s taking weeks to get to the eastern Mediterranean was “the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to our country”. “Greece was able to get a ship out,” she told The News. “The French sent ships out quickly. They were defending British sovereign territory in Cyprus. That would not have happened four years ago. We were ready to help prepare Ukraine for that war.
“Like Lord Robertson said, Keir Starmer has a corrosive complacency towards defence. The world is not as peaceful as 10-15 years ago. It’s getting more dangerous. He needs to get real and spend that money on defence.”
“Worried” about defence spending
Ms Badenoch took the controls of a PAC 24 sea boat which sailed past HMS Queen Elizabeth and other Royal Navy warships. She was joined by shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge and other Tory politicians.
Speaking to the media afterwards, she announced Conservative policies to reinstate the two child benefit cap to fund 20,000 troops, create a sovereign defence fund by taking away billions of pounds from net zero policies, and use extra funding to push ahead with building frigates.
Many shipbuilding programmes - such as the project to produce Type 31s - are spread out over years to save costs. Ms Badenoch added that the money from the “dead” £35bn deal to hand over the Chagos Islands - shelved in April following pressure from US president Donald Trump - should be used to rapidly evolutionise the fleet.
She said: “The money that was going to be spent this year should be immediately repurposed into accelerating the upgrade of our frigates. That’s £400m which he has. He should use that money to get those frigates ready in the 2020s, not the 2030s.
“We’re finding money in different places and repurposing it for defence. The problem Labour has is all they want to do is spend more and more on welfare. Keir Starmer doesn’t have a defence investment plan, but he has a welfare plan until 2031. That shows he has the wrong priorities. Only the Conservatives are thinking about defence.”
In response, Ms Martin said it says everything about the Conservatives choosing to visit the Portsmouth area and not apologise for the damage they did to the armed forces, and talk down the Royal Navy.
“I’m incredibly proud of our sailors and the work being done in Portsmouth and across the country. They deserve serious backing not political point scoring. Let’s not forget the Tories record: we inherited years of cuts that left our armed forces stretched and under pressure.
“We’re turning that around with defence spending at a historic high; real investment in naval capability and our service personnel; and long-term commitments to shipbuilding and our bases.
“So no, l won’t take lectures from those who created the problems in the first place. We’re focused on rebuilding our forces and giving our service personnel the support they deserve. They had their chance and they failed our armed forces.”
Labour minister for defence readiness and industry, Luke Pollard, added: “It’s beyond belief for Badenoch and Cartlidge to claim they would fix a Royal Navy that they left hollowed out through years of underfunding. This is Tory arsonists claiming they could put out their own fire.
“We’re already turning around the mess that Badenoch’s bunglers left behind, putting an extra £300m into shipbuilding over the past year, funded by the biggest uplift in defence spending since the end of the Cold War – a level the Tories didn’t hit once in their 14 years of government.”
Responding to criticism
Labour has pledged to raise defence spending to 2.6 per cent of GDP by 2027, and met the Nato target of 3.5 per cent on core defence by 2035. The previous Tory governments have a patchy record with the armed forces. Former defence secretary Ben Wallace said in January 2023 that the military was “hollowed out and underfunded”.
Issues included poor pay, grotty military housing filled with damp and mould, a reported £13bn worth of procurement waste, and a real terms defence spending decrease of £9.4bn between 2010 and 2024. Frigate programmes were also delayed during that time.
When asked about this record and the unlikelihood of frigates being built in just 18 months, she said: “We were spending a peace dividend. Everyone thought China wasn’t so bad and Russia was in the G8. Now we know we need to spend money on defence. We should spend less time arguing who did what in the past, let’s spend time doing what we’re doing today to look after our future and look after our children.”
Labour has been criticised for the delayed Defence Investment Plan. Due to be published in the autumn of last year, it has been setback until after next week’s local elections. The document sets out how reforms in the Strategic Defence Review are funded, with arguments between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury believed to be the stumbling block.
Former defence secretary and previous Portsmouth North MP Penny Mordaunt said the slow progress is “incredibly disappointing”, and the UK should follow the path of the US, Germany, and Poland in increasing defence spending. “
She said: “We’ve got great companies in Portsmouth, who get work from all over the world. We’ve always had amazing innovation here, but what we do need is the government to start spending money on our own defence. If we don’t start doing that, our industrial base here will suffer.
“I spend a lot of time talking to industry. The frustration is really real. Not everything will be sorted the day after it’s published, but what we know from our defence chiefs is that we have a few years to modernise our armed forces and plug capability gaps.
“If we don’t do that, we’re not going to have the deterrence or resilience we need to defend our nation’s interests. This is not a party political thing. People who care about this country are saying we need to start investing in this foundation capability.
“The incredible partnerships with our armed forces gives me hope and optimism. The depressing bit is they need resources to do that, money which has been promised but not materialised. Companies are having to make dramatic cuts to their budgets. We’ve got outdated regulations which are causing innovative SMEs not being able to do things at speed and the right risk. Lots need to be done, and the government should get on with it. If it doesn’t do that soon, we’re going to be in serious trouble in a few years time.
“We’re at the low point of the platforms we’ve got. We need to look at the world around us and what our enemies are doing. When sea lanes are shut, the cost of living goes through the roof. We can’t grow the economy and solve the cost of living if we can’t keep sea lanes open.”