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’. The Defence Secretary insisted the strikes were a ‘last resort’ following ‘exhaustive diplomatic activity’ and had been intended only as a ‘single action’. ‘We have hit the Houthis, we intend it as a single action. We will now monitor very carefully to see what they do next, how they respond and we will see from there,’ he said.

Shapps declined to be drawn on what actions – if any – constituted an ‘acceptable’ level of Houthi interference in this sphere but asserted: ‘We will not put up with a major waterway, major shipping lanes, being closed on a permanent basis.’ His remarks come ahead of Rishi Sunak’s appearance later this afternoon in the Commons to answer questions about the British airstrikes. Both men feel more comfortable talking about such diplomatic dilemmas than about the issue obsessing Westminster currently – the Telegraph/MRP poll that points to Shapps losing his Welwyn Hatfield seat in less than a year’s time.

When grilled about the survey on his morning media round, Shapps insisted that his party can ‘absolutely’ turn their fortunes around. ‘At least people know we have got a plan and we are working to it,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a plan under Labour.’ It was a better line than the one tried by the Prime Minister, who breezily insisted ‘there will be hundreds more polls: the only one that matters is the one when the general election comes’. Today’s focus on defence – the only policy area where the Tories poll as well as Labour – offers a welcome respite for the government ahead of the showdown over its Rwanda plan tomorrow.