Grant Shapps says world order ‘shaken to its core’

Grant Shapps this morning made his first major speech as Defence Secretary, in the wake of the US/UK airstrikes on Friday against the Houthis in Yemen. The headline announcement at Lancaster House was confirmation that the UK will send 20,000 troops to join one of Nato’s largest military drills since the Cold War, from Eastern Europe to the Arctic Circle. ‘Today our adversaries are busily rebuilding their barriers, old enemies are reanimated, battle lines are being redrawn, the tanks are literally on Ukraine’s lawn,’ warned Shapps as he outlined plans for Operation Steadfast Defender. ‘The foundations of the world order are being shaken to their core.’

Inevitably, it was not Ukraine which dominated the subsequent Q&A with journalists, but the Red Sea strikes. Shapps said the airstrikes were ‘a direct blueprint for how the UK must continue to lead in the future’ in responding to ‘malign actors seeking to break rules-based international order’.