Britain should have been better prepared for conflict in the Middle East ahead of last week’s US and Israeli strikes on Iran, a former security minister has said.
In an interview with the JC, Tom Tugendhat said the UK failed to strengthen its military force in the region despite clear signs that tensions were escalating.
Britain “should have had more defence capacity in the region already in the build-up to this,” he said.
The Conservative MP for Tonbridge, who served as security minister from 2022 to 2024, pointed to the growing American military presence – which he labelled an “enormous US armada” – as a clear warning sign.
“We were not prepared. It is quite clear that we do not have a ship in the region,” he said.
A government spokesperson said on Monday that Britain had been “bolstering our military presence in the region since January.”
But HMS Dragon, the warship that the prime minister deployed to protect the RAF Akrotiri base on Cyprus last Tuesday – more than 72 hours after the conflict began, and after the base had been struck by a drone – has yet to set sail.
The delay reflected a longer-term problem with Britain’s defence planning, said Tugendhat, adding that successive governments had weakened the armed forces since the end of the 1990s.
“We have taken the peace dividend again and again, and I'm afraid we did not invest in the armed forces during the time of Iraq and Afghanistan, and we took too much out of them before that,” he said.
“At various different points, we have failed to recognise the threats that are before us.”
The “peace dividend” refers to a slogan popularised by the late US president George HW Bush and his UK counterpart, Margaret Thatcher, describing the supposed economic benefit of a decrease in defence spending.
Tugendhat – a former soldier who served during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – said the attack on the RAF base last week was troubling but not unexpected.
“On one level, [I was] deeply disappointed, on another level, not totally surprised,” he said. “The reality is, if you don't put things in the region to protect yourself… it is a problem.
“We are ill-led and ill-prepared. The armed forces and our citizens would expect us to do better.”
Despite his criticism of Britain’s preparedness, Tugendhat supported Starmer’s “completely correct” decision not to participate in the initial strikes against Iran.
But he stressed that the UK should still have been ready to help defend allies from Iranian retaliation from the outset.
“There’s a reasonable case to say that we should not be involved in the military operations, but I do not think there is a reasonable case to say that we shouldn't be involved in protecting our friends and allies,” he said.
“Whether it is missiles coming over from Tehran to strike the UAE or Jordan or Israel, it doesn't matter. We should be neutralising them; we should be hitting them.”
Tugendhat claimed Britain possesses the military strength required for such defence but had failed to position them in time.
“We've got a Type 45 destroyer [HMS Dragon]… It can shoot down missile rockets that are in the air above it or around it,” he said.
“Had that been in the region, we would have been able to play our part in protecting our friends and our citizens. But I'm afraid that's not what we did.”
The problem, he suggested, was the timing of the decision to deploy forces.
“The failing isn't that [HMS Dragon] will have taken a week to leave,” he said, indicating the ship that is still stationed in Portsmouth Harbour. “It's that the order to leave was given so late. We have known that these operations were coming at least since January.”
Tugendhat also warned that the conflict could heighten security risks inside the UK. Referring to the arrests last week of four men suspected of spying for Iran and surveilling locations linked to Jewish communities, he said, “This is not completely surprising.”
The MP urged vigilance but cautioned against overreaction, and praised counter-terrorism services: “We have very effective intelligence operations, and must be cautious about getting too paranoid. But that also doesn't mean we should be complacent.
“Britain is already a target in Iran. We have been targeted by Iran for decades, including attempted murders inside the UK,” he added.
The former minister – who serves as a senior adviser for United Against Nuclear Iran (Uani) – reiterated his longtime support for proscribing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a move the government has repeatedly said it would make.
His comments about Britain's preparedness for war come after former diplomat Ameer Kotecha claimed that ministers had been warned weeks in advance that a US-Israel strike on Iran was likely but failed to prepare adequately.
Kotecha, who recently stepped down from his role at the British embassy in Tel Aviv, said officials had ample notice of the escalation. “They didn't do enough,” he said in a Sky News interview when asked if the UK had done enough to bolster its military presence in the region.
“The UK government could have done a lot more,” he added.
Kotecha also said he was “surprised” that the British destroyer had not been deployed earlier.
According to Kotecha, warnings from the region had been communicated to London well before the strikes.
The British ambassador in Israel, Simon Walters, was “aware” of the probable conflict and was “reporting those conversations back to London weeks before it happened,” Kotecha said.
He suggested political caution and legal constraints had shaped the government’s response.
Ministers had either “been caught off guard or actively didn't want to take those steps, because they are beholden in many ways to a very rigid interpretation of international law.”
Washington reportedly did not share exact details of the strike on Iran well ahead of time, but the UK is believed to have been informed in the moments leading up to the attack on Tehran.
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