With the rapid withdrawal of 12 B1-b bombers back to the United States, the story of the security threat to RAF Fairford gets deeper and murkier.
Donald Trump has been explicit – and also uncharacteristically restrained – when talking about why the bombers were relocated at short notice over the weekend. The President said the US had known of a “threat” that led to the removal of the bombers. US briefers told reporters that what they saw as an Iranian-backed plot had been followed for more than a fortnight, and that the threat of a drone attack by foreign agents or their proxies was serious and ongoing.
Meanwhile, US military aircrew connected to the Fairford base gave background briefings to the Wall Street Journal that US authorities feared that a plot against the base could involve sending in small hit squads to kill military personnel stationed there.
Both the Journal and the New York Times have given clear reports and analysis about the situation. The British press has been left behind. Official spokespersons at the UK Ministry of Defence have said this is largely an American matter and referred correspondents to the Pentagon.
The official line of the UK government, repeated overnight, is that all military air bases are safe. But in downplaying Fairford and its significance, the Burnham government is fast losing control of the narrative. UK homeland defence, especially for military sites and strategic communication and infrastructure hubs, is looking distinctly bereft.
Smelling the political opportunity, Kemi Badenoch announced that a Conservative government would invest in a “Britannia Shield” of anti-drone and integrated air defences. It would cost £1 billion a year for a decade.
Many details have still not been made public about what happened that day at Fairford. Only today, counterterror police said they had arrested a 22-year old British man in London on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts in connection to a suspected plot at Fairford. There has also been no background information about the six previous arrests made. The men are now out on bail, and it is not clear what charges are pending, if any at all.
Trump was dismayed that the men were released – though his comments were mild compared to his usual form.
Attacks on airfields and bases by drones have been on the increase across Europe, from the borderlands with Russia and Ukraine, especially in the Baltic states, to Denmark and the UK. In early August a helicopter drone was launched at a Ukrainian transport plane at Leipzig airfield. The explosives fell off before it could hit the target, but the package of 800 grams of pentaerythritol tetranitrate was potent enough to have caused a devastating fire.
Hours later, a freight plane hit a drone midair. Police said this was a drone supplied by Russian intelligence to photograph the effects of the first drone, had it exploded.
Police patrol the perimeter as a US Air Force Rockwell B-1 Lancer bomber lands at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire on 29 September (Photo: Ben Birchall/ PA)Experts pointed at how Iranian and Russian agents had been hiring local criminals to prepare – and carry out – subversive operations. One view is that the men near RAF Fairford were being used as a deception ploy, to distract the police and airfield security, while the main action would come from another direction.
The most daring recent drone attack that is ringing alarm bells – and the one that experts use for their playbooks for counter-drone defence – is the mass attack mounted by Ukraine in June 2025. Operation Spiderweb involved 117 attack drones launched from lorries smuggled close to five different Russian air bases. Around 40 aircraft were hit, including ten strategic bombers that were destroyed. A hostile state could conceivably take Ukraine’s playbook and use drones disguised in container lorries against our own bases.
The leakiness of defences round RAF bases in the UK was shown up by the successful penetration of the base at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire by Palestine Action protesters that same month. They spray-painted an aircraft, causing an estimated £1m in damages.
One joint RAF-US Air Force base that lays bare the security crisis is RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk. The USAF keep air tankers and support aircraft for Special Operations Command here but as at Fairford – they sit in the open with no hardened shelters, making them easy drone targets. If President Trump is serious about the Iran-backed drone threat, they will have to be moved.
A viewing of Sky’s The Wargame demonstrates first-hand the UK’s lack of preparedness to deal with hybrid threats from drones, terrorist and subversives. The series, which features former ministers and military officers, shows how the UK could respond to an attack.
The outcomes aren’t good. Local air defences along the east coast of Britain are thin, relying on a handful of short-range Sky Sabre missile systems. Long-range air defences would have to be directed by a Type 45 Daring class destroyer. Currently only two are fully operational.
In the show, only one Type 45 destroyer is available, but this was despatched to cover the nuclear submarine base at Faslane. As for the seven or so major strategic ports round Britain and the major airfields and ports, they would just have to fend for themselves.
Interestingly, two of the main participants in the series are Lord Robertson and General Sir Richard Barrons, two of the three authors of last year’s Strategic Defence Review. That document was to plan for defence reform and an increase in the defence budget to 3 per cent of GDP. It now looks dead in the water.
Whitehall sources have told reporters that Andy Burnham is unlikely to increase defence spending at all this parliament, despite previous pledges and promises to Trump and Nato. Instead, the budget will stick at around 2.4 per cent of GDP, with a huge amount of that going to expenditure on nuclear programmes.
Badenoch’s Britannia Shield is largely fantasy – it would take too long to develop and wouldn’t be comprehensive. It is a figment of politics rather than a practical option. But with the UK dependent on maritime and air security, and with 95 per cent of our trade in goods conveyed by sea, we need to do better.
Britain – meaning every one of us – is incredibly vulnerable and our government appears to be doing nothing to protect us from these very real and growing threats. This is the message from Fairford. And it is getting louder by the day.
Hence then, the article about the fairford mystery just got murkier britain is losing its grip was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The Fairford mystery just got murkier. Britain is losing its grip )
Also on site :
- Kenya confirms first Ebola case after patient dies
- Taylor Swift Shatters All-Time Billboard Record as ‘Patient Zero’ Leads 4 New Songs Into Global Top 10
- Croatia Face Spain Today: Kickoff Time and Broadcast Details