Badenoch pledges £10bn 'Britannia Shield' missile-and-drone shield if Tories win election
Kemi Badenoch has pledged £10bn for 'Britannia Shield', an Israel-style Iron Dome missile-and-drone defence system, in a pledge Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge is to set out at the Conservative Party conference.
Kemi Badenoch has pledged that a Conservative government would spend £10bn building “Britannia Shield”, a British version of Israel’s Iron Dome to shoot down missiles and drones.
Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge is to set it out in a Tuesday conference speech; The Times reports it would be funded through a “fully costed” plan to spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030.
It would combine advanced radar, low-cost interceptor drones, laser weapons, electronic warfare jammers and short-to-long range missile systems in a “multi-layered” bubble, The Times reports. The Sun quotes Badenoch saying the national missile-and-drone system would protect “the whole United Kingdom, our sovereign territories and British bases overseas”, and that the Tories would get it operational by the end of their first term in power if elected.
The Times says Badenoch would hit the 3 per cent target by reforming welfare and reprioritising existing expenditure if her party won the next general election; writing in The Sun, she accused PM Andy Burnham of “failing his most important duty to keep the country safe”.
She tied the announcement to the US withdrawal of bombers from RAF Fairford, writing: “Is it any wonder the US are pulling their bombers out of RAF Fairford? They don’t believe the Government is doing what’s necessary to defend our country from hostile states.”
Cartlidge said: “With a £10billion budget, this would be one of Britain’s most significant military programmes since the Cold War.”
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