The withdrawal of American B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford has prompted plenty of official reassurance. We’re told it’s routine. We’re told not to read anything into it. We’re told the base remains secure and that the movement of military assets happens all the time.
Perhaps.
But the real question is not why the bombers have left. It’s why they were here in the first place.
For years, Britain has drifted into a position that would have seemed extraordinary to previous generations. American military aircraft operate from British soil. American personnel are stationed at British bases. American nuclear weapons have returned to British territory. Time and again, British governments of every political colour have allowed our country to become a platform for military operations directed by a foreign power.
The assumption behind all this is rarely challenged. It is treated as the natural order of things. It isn’t.
A sovereign nation should not have to justify keeping foreign military forces off its territory. The burden should be on those who believe they belong here. The events of recent days merely reinforce that point.
Six men have been arrested in connection with an alleged plot linked to RAF Fairford. Counter-terror police have stressed that no explosive devices were discovered and investigations are ongoing. Nobody should jump to conclusions.
Yet one fact remains unavoidable. When military facilities are used to support conflicts abroad, they become associated with those conflicts. They attract attention. They attract hostility. They attract risks that would not otherwise exist.
This is not controversial. It is common sense.
If bombers fly from Britain to participate in operations against another country, Britain is no longer a detached observer. Whether ministers admit it or not, we become involved. And that is precisely the problem.
Former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to allow the use of British bases in support of operations against Iran was presented as a limited and defensive measure. Such language is always reassuring. Politicians have become adept at finding new ways to describe participation in military action without calling it participation in military action.
The reality is that facilities on British territory played a role in another escalating conflict in the Middle East. The public were never asked whether they wanted that. Parliament was never meaningfully consulted. And once again Britain found itself pulled into events largely shaped in Washington rather than Westminster.
This has become a pattern. Afghanistan. Iraq. Libya. Syria. Now Iran.
At every stage the British public are told that involvement is necessary, responsible and essential for our security. Then the dust settles. The promises disappear. The regions involved are left unstable. And ordinary people are expected to forget what they were told at the beginning.
The Iraq War was supposed to create stability. It didn’t. The Afghanistan campaign was supposed to defeat extremism. It didn’t. The intervention in Libya was supposed to prevent chaos. It didn’t.
Never a serious reassessment.
Yet somehow the answer offered by the foreign policy establishment is always the same. More intervention. More military commitments. More dependence on American strategic priorities. Never an admission that perhaps the entire approach is flawed.
Campaigners from organisations including CND, Stop the War and the Peace and Justice Project have welcomed the withdrawal of the bombers and renewed calls for the removal of American military assets from Britain. Third Way adds our voice to theirs.
Their critics often dismiss such arguments as unrealistic or ideological. In fact, the opposite is true.
What is unrealistic is the belief that Britain can endlessly tie itself to the military adventures of a superpower and somehow avoid the consequences.
What is ideological is the assumption that Britain must automatically align itself with Washington regardless of the circumstances.
The defenders of the status quo rarely explain what Britain actually gains from these arrangements. We are told they strengthen security. How?
We are told they deter threats. Which threats?
We are told they make us safer. Where is the evidence?
The last quarter century has not exactly been a golden age of peace and stability. It is time for a different approach.
The answer is not isolationism. The answer is armed neutrality.
That phrase tends to trigger panic among Britain’s political class because they immediately pretend it means withdrawing from the world. It does not.
An armed neutral Britain would still maintain powerful armed forces. It would still defend its airspace, coastline, critical infrastructure and sea lanes. It would still trade with allies and cooperate with friendly nations. It would still possess the means to defend itself against any aggressor.
In some respects, our military might even become stronger. Resources currently committed to supporting distant interventions could instead be focused on what armed forces are actually meant to do: defend the nation.
That should not be a radical proposition. The first duty of the British Armed Forces should be the defence of Britain. Not regime change. Not nation building. Not policing the internal affairs of countries thousands of miles away. And certainly not acting as an auxiliary force for another government’s foreign policy.
An armed neutral Britain would make one simple statement to the world. We will defend ourselves.
We will trade with everyone. We will maintain friendly relations wherever possible. But British territory will not be used as a launchpad for other people’s wars.
That means no foreign nuclear weapons. No foreign bomber deployments. No foreign military control over British bases. No permanent foreign troop presence. No automatic participation in conflicts that have little or nothing to do with the direct defence of the United Kingdom.
Some will say such a policy is naïve.
What seems naïve is believing that repeating the mistakes of the last twenty-five years will somehow produce a different outcome.
Others will say the world is becoming more dangerous. They are right. That is exactly why Britain should stop creating unnecessary risks for itself.
In an increasingly unstable world, the priority should be resilience, self-reliance and national independence. Not dependence. Not entanglement. Not acting as an extension of someone else’s military machine.
The departure of the B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford may ultimately be temporary. New aircraft may arrive. The headlines will move on. Ministers will continue to insist there is nothing to see.
But a bigger question has been raised.Who decides when Britain becomes involved in a foreign conflict? The British people? Or a series of arrangements that place American military interests at the centre of British foreign policy?
Sooner or later, that question will have to be answered. Because the issue was never really about a handful of bombers at Fairford. The issue is sovereignty.
A genuinely independent nation should not host foreign nuclear weapons. A genuinely independent nation should not provide bases for wars it has not chosen. A genuinely independent nation should not place itself in danger because another government has decided to settle scores on the other side of the world.
Britain should have friends. Britain should have allies. Britain should have a strong military.
But Britain should not be a military outpost for any foreign power, however close the relationship may be.
Defend Britain. Protect British interests. Secure British borders. And when it comes to war, let Britain make its own decisions.
That should be the minimum expectation of a sovereign nation.
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