Is the EU is shamelessly free-riding off the British Navy

The UK government is set to deploy one of the Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers to the Red Sea, replacing the USS Dwight D Eisenhower when it returns to the US. While there’s much in Britain’s defences to take issue with, it’s a reminder that London still plays a leading role on the international stage, providing security to our allies and plugging critical gaps with capabilities no-one else can provide.

The carrier will reinforce and strengthen the US-led coalition already deployed to theatre, taking position alongside HMS Diamond, the Type 45 Destroyer which has already won considerable plaudits for its sterling work defending international shipping against Houthi missiles and drones.

Both are needed. Beyond the activities of its Houthi proxies, Tehran is stepping up their campaign targeting global shipping and military bases across the Middle East.

Some 40 per cent of trade between Asia and Europe passes through the Red Sea, and currently risks disruption from Houthi attacks. Despite the repeated cuts to numbers and chronic under-investment, Britain is doing its part in a region where all of Europe has heavily vested interests in maintaining security. The rest of the continent is not.

When politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels, Paris and Berlin are openly speculating about the consequences of a second Trump administration in Washington for European security, and visibly fearful over the future of Nato, it is startling that they have offered so little assistance in securing the free flow of trade.

The European Union and its members are almost allergic to deploying hard military power at times when it is most needed, preferring instead to offer token deployments and avoid spending on defence. Even when their interests are directly threatened, even when it is in their own back garden, they are all too happy to sit back and let Britain and America do the heavy lifting.

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