Sending UK ships to police Strait of Hormuz ‘a fantasy’, ex-defence secretary warns

Sir Ben Wallace - who served as defence secretary under three prime ministers - accused the government ministers of ‘taking the public for fools’ after John Healey argued the UK is ready to defend itself
Sending British warships to police the Strait of Hormuz is a “fantasy” because the UK’s 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 refused to rule out on Friday, risked “leaving our troops dangerously unprotected and overstretched”.

He urged the government to stop ducking tough decisions and properly fund Britain’s defence, as he accused ministers of “taking the public for fools” after the current defence secretary, John Healey, insisted the UK is ready to defend itself.

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 a two-week conditional ceasefire in the US-Iran conflict was announced.

It comes after Donald Trump demanded that Nato allies send warships to the 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.”
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 over a lack of spending on defence, 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.

“In certain areas, efficiencies can be found.

And this appears to be the bet being made across the services…
“Obviously, there are ways to find innovative solutions to the same problem without necessarily spending more money.

But even so, I think the broad picture that he paints is an accurate one.”
While Dr Kaushal argued that the UK could “usefully contribute to an allied effort to open the Strait”, he also warned that there are “definitely gaps” in our defensive capability “that we would see exposed were a decision to contribute made”.

He explained: “Certain things that would have been a part of our offer in the Gulf historically, things like mine countermeasures.

We maintained a standing presence in the region of mine countermeasures vessels for around 20 years, which we no longer do because that capability has has entered a temporary trough.”
“There are also, of course, questions around vessel readiness”, he added, pointing to the long-term maintenance of Type 45 air defence destroyers.

The UK deployed HMS Dragon , Britain’s fourth Type 45 destroyer, to Cyprus after RAF Akrotiri was hit by a drone strike, but the ship took a week to leave Portsmouth as it needed to undergo maintenance – a delay which has been seen as symptomatic of the state of Britain’s defence readiness.

Sir Ben’s warnings come 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”.

Giving a damning assessment of the military , General Sir Richard Barrons, who was one of the authors of a major defence review published last year by the government, warned that none of the services could do “anything substantial”.

But asked whether the UK is ready to defend itself at the London Defence Conference on Friday, Mr Healey responded: “Yes, and I think what I set out yesterday demonstrates just how ready our forces are when required.”
Pointing to the UK’s monitoring of three Russian submarines found operating in the North Atlantic, the defence secretary 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.”
Meanwhile, asked whether the UK could send Royal Navy ships to the Strait of Hormuz, armed forces minister Luke Pollard told the BBC: “Well, I can't go into all the options at the moment.

What I can say is we've already pre-deployed some of the Royal Navy's autonomous mine hunting capabilities to the Middle East.”
Pressed on whether Britain would be prepared to deploy Royal Navy ships to the region, Mr Pollard said: “Yes, and as I've already set out, we have pre-deployed some of the Royal Navy's autonomous mine hunting capabilities to the Gulf region already so it could be used, if required, as part of that international effort.

The Ministry of Defence has been contacted for comment.

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