Author Archives: William Gleeson

Sir Ed Davey’s recent Defence proposal to start selling war bonds so that we can “move far faster” on UK defence spending, was welcome. The state of our armed forces is far poorer than these dangerous times call for. The UK’s ability to project its defensive capabilities within our own neighbourhood would be severely tested and likely found wanting if it were to be needed any time soon.

Whilst I was pleased to see that there were the beginnings of a party plan on funding the defence investment needed. I was left wondering how ready we are as a party for war, hybrid war or almost war. Sir Ed rightly called out that “we’re in almost a Cold War type scenario” with a nod to Russian use of drones, submarines and shadow fleets, calling it a “serious threat”. However, I believe this underplays our current predicament. 

If we take stock of where we are today: the Russian state has poisoned British citizens in Salisbury; assassinated an opposition leader in London; directed relentless cybercrime attacks against the UK costing us billions; had its ships cutting our allies communications cables; is likely directing drones interfering with our military bases; using our children as tools of attack against us; caused the death of many UK citizens through disruption to the NHS; is directing arson attacks on London and may be encouraging another migrant crisis to disrupt social cohesion. 

Is this peace? It doesn’t feel like it.

Is it too hard to believe that with a mixture of dark web, bitcoin, crime gangs and vulnerable youth we are close to the Kremlin orchestrating a campaign of disruption and destruction across Britain? Our transport links are vulnerable to something as simple as a person being seen walking on or near a train line. We’ve already seen what damage untrained amateurs can do to our defence capabilities.