The Shadow Defence Secretary has claimed that the seizure of a Russian oil tanker in the English Channel was a deliberate move to distract attention away from the government’s “shambles” on defence.
He told The Camilla Tominey Show on GB News: “We support this action, notwithstanding the fact that there have been a lot of shadow vessels passing through our waters and nothing seems to have happened. I welcome the fact that they’ve intercepted this vessel, obviously subject to the fact we only know a relatively small amount of information.
“I pay tribute to the Royal Marines and the Navy and Royal Air Force personnel who joined them, because we do have brilliant people in our armed forces, and this shows they can do the job if you give them the kit, and if you have a government willing to lead.
“I hope this is a sign of things to come under the new Defence Secretary. We do need to send a strong signal to Russia, but part of that strong signal, it has to be said, is instead of the shambles of recent days that we’ve had with the Defence Investment Plan, the Prime Minister’s got to get a grip, and from our point of view, that means finding the money.
“Everyone now sees that, and a big part of that means getting on top of our welfare bill to give to our armed forces, so that these aren’t one-offs, but we are broadly sending a strong signal to our adversaries that we really are back in defence.”
He added: “Something John Healey said, I think a week or two ago, may not have had much pickup, but to me very important. He said, well, there’s a problem when you procure lots of drones and you’re not actually at war, like Ukraine and Russia, that you stick them in a shed and they go out of date very quickly.
“Something we’ve set out as a policy in opposition that I’ve set out as Shadow Defence Secretary is, we’d establish a sovereign defence fund. I announced this on your programme some months ago. This would have £2 billion a year of R&D and £11 billion from the net zero funding in the National Wealth Fund.
“This would all go on defence and defence tech, so AI drones, autonomy, and for me the key is we’ve got to change the way we procure. We’ve got to procure drones more like a service. If you just buy one and stick it in a shed, it does go out of date quickly. What we’ve got to do is change the way the army, navy, and air force train, the way they test.
“So I want to have companies, British SMEs that are embedded on Salisbury Plain with the British Army that are working with them when they start training with drones, adapting, in other words, mirroring how war is fought today. The most important cultural change in modern warfare is this constant adaptation.”