Badenoch calls for UK ‘Iron Dome’ missile defence system - UK politics live

Asked if she will propose tax cuts in her speech tomorrow, Badenoch tells McCann that she will have to wait until her speech tomorrow at 11.15am. (This is getting confusing. On BBC Breakdfast, Badenoch told Jon Kay the speech was at 12pm.)

Q: You say your Iron Dome will protect the whole of the UK, and bases abroad. But Sir Richard Barrons, the former general, has said that a proper air defence like this would cost up to £100bn. Badenoch says Barrons is referring to an Israel-style Iron Dome. She says she is referring to something different.

She says the UK should be able to defend itself from, for example, someone on a boat firing a drone at the system. Q: But it is nothing like Israel’s Iron Dome. It is a gimmick, isn’t it? Badenoch replied: It’s not going to be exactly like the Irone Dome. We haven’t called it an Iron Dome. But, in fact, they did. This is what they sent out to journalists yesterday.

Badenoch is on Times Radio now. She is being interviewed by Kate McCann. Asked when she would raise defence spending to 3. 5% of GDP, Badenoch says she has a plan to get to 3%. But she is not in government. Q: But you say there might be an election soon? Badenoch says the 3. 5% is a Nato target. She says she is not in government, and she implies it is unreasonable for McCann to expect her to set out a path to 3.

Q: Would you like to see Penny Mordaunt selected as a Tory candidate? (At the weekend Mordaunt, the former cabinet minister who lost her seat at the election, revealed she has been approved for the candidates list, which means she can apply to be a candidate in a Tory seat.) Badenoch says it is not up to her to decide; local parties choose their candidates, she says.

She says she wants “serious people” committed to public service as MPs. Q: Do you want to see her selected? Badenoch says Mordaunt was a “fantastic MP”. She says she was sorry she lost her seat, and is glad she wants to stand again. But former MPs won’t get special treatment when candidates are being selected, she says. She says she wants candidate selection to be a “meritocracy”.

Q: You are going to cut inheritance tax, aren’t you? Badenoch says everyone knows she would like to do that. She has said that before. But she won’t announce that unless she has found the money to pay for it. Q: Will you have found the money by the time you give your speech tomorrow? Badenoch tells Kay he will have to wait.

Jon Kay is interviewing Badenoch. He puts it to her that the UK would need a very different missile defence system from Israel. Israel is under threat from short-range missiles, he says. Badenoch says it is not just missiles that threaten the UK; drones are a threat too. Q: Would £10bn be enough to pay for it? Badenoch says it can be done. The £10bn would be spent over 10 years, she says.

Kemi Badenoch is on BBC Breakfast. They start by asking about the death of Jeffrey Archer, and Badenoch says she got a message from him only yesterday morning. He said: “Great outfit, great speech, no need to reply.” Badenoch says Archer was “a great communicator” and a “great storyteller”, and someone who believed in Conservatism. Here is our story about his death.

The Liberal Democrats have dismissed the Tory plan for a “Britannia Shield” as “Truss-style fantasy economics”. They say the Conservatives would only get a “Patchwork Dome” with the £10bn they plan to spend on the project. James MacCleary, the Lib Dem defence spokesperson, said: Once again the Conservatives are indulging in Truss-style fantasy economics.

£10bn would not even touch the sides for a complete UK-wide ‘Iron Dome’. They either need to review their dodgy sums or come clean about which parts of the country their Patchwork Dome wouldn’t cover.

Let’s not forget this is the party that hollowed out our armed forces for a decade, and whose disgraceful plan to fill the defence-spending black hole is based on targeted cuts to the poorest and most vulnerable children. You do not make Britain safer by pushing families into poverty.

This is what the Conservatives are saying about why the UK needs a “Britannia Shield” (their name for what they describe as a version of the “Iron Dome”), and who it would work. The announcement comes as the threat of missile and drone attack against Britain and our allies continues to grow.

Russia bombards Ukraine daily with ever more advanced drones and missiles, and they were behind a drone attack on Leipzig airport in August. Drones launched by Iranian proxies have hit our RAF base in Cyprus, and when Iran fired missiles at the Chagos islands earlier this year, it was the US who stepped in to launch interceptors.

Nato allies, especially in the Baltic States, are suffering ever greater numbers of drone incursions and western intelligence agencies have warned that Russia could attack a Nato country by 2030. We live in an increasingly dangerous and unpredictable world, where threats to the UK and our allies are growing in scale and complexity, yet Britain remains dangerously exposed.

Good morning. Kemi Badenoch is doing a round of interviews this morning at the Conservative conference, and she will be talking about her plans for the UK to have its own version of Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defence system. That phrase is not just journalists’ hype; it has come from the first line of the party’s press release, which says the party has plans for a “new integrated air and missile defence system to protect Britain from attack – in essence, a British ‘Iron Dome’.” Here is our story by Jessica Elgot and Dan Sabbagh.

And this is what Badenoch is saying about it. The first duty of government is to defend the country and keep people safe. Labour are failing that basic test. The world will not wait for Britain to get ready. War has returned to Europe. Missiles and drones are transforming warfare in the Middle East. Cheap weapons can now threaten cities, military bases and critical infrastructure in ways that would have sounded like science fiction a generation ago. If a miss

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