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Badenoch attempts to defuse Israel ‘Iron Dome’ claims over UK defence project
New UK air defence project had initially been compared to the Iron Dome protective system
Kemi Badenoch has been forced to backtrack after initially claiming that her party’s proposed £10 billion Britannia Shield air defence system was “modelled on Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’.”
In an article for The Sun newspaper, Badenoch wrote: “Modelled on Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’, Britannia Shield will invest £10bn over 10 years in the radar, missiles and technology needed to detect these threats and stop them before they reach British soil.”
The article was accompanied by a photograph of Israel’s Iron Dome system, and a Conservative Party press release described the project as “in essence a British Iron Dome”.
The party proposed allocating £1bn a year over a decade towards building the system.
However, former army general Richard Barrons told Times Radio that the cost of a system comparable to Israel’s would be “upwards of £100bn.”
However, when questioned on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Badenoch sought to distance the Britannia Shield proposal from comparisons with Israel’s Iron Dome.
“We are not building the Iron Dome,” she insisted. “We are doing what other European countries are doing: Greece, Benelux countries – Belgium and the Netherlands – and Germany. We are designing something specific for the kind of threat that we face here.”
Asked why newspapers had chosen to describe it as an Iron Dome, Badenoch responded: “You’ll have to speak to the newspapers about that. I called it the Britannia Shield.
“But we are explaining to people that missile defence systems are things that we need right now. The Iron Dome is one type, and we want people to understand what we’re talking about—we haven’t said that we are replicating that. And the money that we are spending, £1bn a year over 10 years, should be able to deliver this.”
Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge also sought to clarify the comparison.
Speaking at the party conference in Birmingham, he told journalists: “So, the phrase ‘iron dome’ has come to be used a bit like the word ‘hoover’ to generically refer to missile defence systems – and this is clearly a missile defence system. Is it the exact same Iron Dome as Israel? No.
“The Israeli Iron Dome is a short-range system. It’s to do with very near threats from the likes of Hezbollah. It was actually originally designed for artillery and very unsophisticated weaponry, whereas what we’re talking about, Britannia Shield, is a bespoke UK system. It’s just that if you speak to the media and the public, if you say ‘Iron Dome’, they at least know roughly what you’re talking about.”
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