Navy will not send ships to Middle East because situation is 'fluid'

 The Royal Navy is unwilling to send warships to the Middle East because the threat posed by Iran means the situation is “too fluid”.

Tehran and its proxies have blockaded the Strait of Hormuz to prevent oil shipments to the West, attacking tankers passing through the narrow waterway.

Military chiefs fear that Iran would try to sink British warships with advanced weapons including anti-ship cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and kamikaze drones.

On Wednesday night, Iran struck the world’s largest liquefied natural gas export facility in Qatar after threatening to hit key sites across the Gulf.

Officials in Qatar said the missile strike on Wednesday had caused a fire and “extensive damage” at the Ras Laffan gas facility.

A senior defence source said: “It’s an incredibly fluid situation at the moment. I don’t see many nations being willing to put warships into the middle of that threat right now.”

British military officers have reportedly been dispatched to the US for talks on how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. 

Donald Trump has publicly chastised Sir Keir Starmer for refusing to deploy one of the Navy’s two £3.2bn aircraft carriers or other warships to the Middle East as the crisis rages on.

The US president accused the Prime Minister of seeking to “join wars after we’ve already won” and said he would remember the lack of British support during the conflict.

The Telegraph can also reveal that the White House has had “long-standing” concerns over Britain’s ability to send warships to sea following delays in deploying a destroyer to the Mediterranean.

It took Britain a week to prepare HMS Dragon, a Type 45 built to shoot down missiles, drones and jets, to sail to the region after the drone attack against RAF Akrotiri, a British air base in Cyprus, on March 1.

The ship was docked without weapons and had scaffolding on when Sir Keir ordered her to sail. After the 8,500-ton ship left Portsmouth, she spent three days in the Channel before starting her journey south.

A well-placed Washington insider told The Telegraph that the conflict in Iran showed “the need for increased readiness and certain capabilities”, including a more muscular Royal Navy with a fleet of deployable warships. The source said the RAF “seems better”.

The source added that the US government believed Sir Keir had avoided taking part in the conflict because he was not convinced of the legality of the war, and it was “politically beneficial not to”.

However, a British defence official on Wednesday signalled that the UK was preparing to scramble more ships and was working closely with allies including the US on this.

“We are reducing notice to move, we are generating capability [and] we’re offering choice,” the military source said.

Defence officials have sent a small team of British military planners to US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, to help draw up options for reopening shipping in the strait, The Times reported. 

Elsewhere on Wednesday, the price of oil surged by more than 5 per cent to $108 (£81) a barrel after ‌Iran urged staff to leave sites in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar before a possible strike.

Such an assault would further cripple global oil and gas supplies, with Brent crude reaching the highest level in 10 days amid fears of a growing shortage.

Britain has a fleet of six Type 45 destroyers it could send to the region to help allies facing Iranian attacks. However, only HMS Dragon has been ordered to sea.

Two of the other ships, HMS Diamond and HMS Defender, are undergoing refits to replace their engines, which have proven unreliable in the warmer waters of the Gulf and the Mediterranean.

These upgrades are not expected to be completed until next year, meaning the £1bn guided-missile destroyers will be unavailable until then.

At the same time, HMS Dauntless is undergoing maintenance following her eight-month mission escorting the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales to the Indo-Pacific last year.

HMS Daring, which has been out of action for almost nine years, is being phased back into naval service after her engine upgrade, with a crew having recently joined the ship. But she is not expected to deploy soon.

And HMS Duncan, her sister ship, was at sea with her crew having trained last month to combat attacks by swarms of drones and ballistic missiles.

But the vessel has not undergone her engine upgrade under the Navy’s £160m power improvement project for the Type 45s, meaning she is unlikely to head to the Gulf.

Britain only has two submarines at sea, HMS Anson, an Astute-class attack submarine, and a Vanguard-class boat armed with nuclear weapons.

The rest of the fleet is understood to be alongside, with several Astute boats having been unable to sail because of maintenance issues.

Meanwhile, much of the Navy’s seven-strong frigate force is unavailable, needing maintenance or upgrades. Britain decommissioned its last warship in the Gulf, HMS Lancaster, just before Christmas.

The UK’s sole minehunter in the region, HMS Middleton, left in January. Only a team of eight naval staff remain in Bahrain, armed with autonomous drones. They might be able to respond to the Iranian mine threat.

Al Carns, the Armed Forces minister, said the dangers posed by Tehran – particularly in the middle of an active war zone – were a “significant military challenge” and would require more than just Britain taking part.

“In 1987, when this last happened [during the war between Iran and Iraq], it took 30 warships to escort in the Strait of Hormuz. It’s a major undertaking,” the former special forces officer said.

“Escort ships will not solve the problem alone… This must be a multi-national solution, but we’re not anywhere near that at the moment.”

And in a seeming veiled warning to Washington, Mr Carns added: “There is one thing worse than working with allies and that’s working without them.”

The Telegraph understands that among the options being considered is a revival of Operation Sentinel, a naval task force previously put together to defend the Strait of Hormuz.

Made up of eight nations, including the UK, the operation saw vessels escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz and protecting vessels from rocket attack by Houthi rebels in 2019.

HMS Dragon is expected to arrive in the eastern Mediterranean at some point next week.