Britain’s air defences have been neglected for too long

Keir Starmer has now been shamed into increasing the defence budget to 2.5 percent by 2027, a welcome move but one that will barely touch the sides of the problem. With the Strategic Defence Review being released in a few months (maybe), hard choices will still have to be made on which capabilities to fund. They can’t all be supported, and reconstituting a depleted army and boosting munitions stockpiles will probably be the priority. But there’s another area that has been badly neglected for decades: air and missile defences at home.

Being the first nation to be subjected to bombardment by ballistic and cruise missiles some 80 years ago, one might believe that Britain would be prepared for a similar attack in the current day. Sadly, the missile defence picture has changed little. As reported ad nauseum over the past weeks, the ‘peace dividend’, declared some 30 years ago, led to chronic underinvestment in defence and the hollowing-out of British forces across the board.