Kemi Badenoch has denied she compared a new air defence system proposed by the party to Israel’s Iron Dome, despite using the term in her press release and a newspaper article.
The Conservative leader said the party’s proposed “Britannia Shield” would not be comparable to the missile defence system in Israel, which is primarily designed to counter short-range attacks.
The party has proposed allotting £1bn a year towards building the system, though the former army general Richard Barrons told Times Radio the cost of a system similar to Israel’s would be upwards of £100bn.
Badenoch said on Times Radio it was a “semantic argument” and that the new system would protect Britain from increasing threats.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the description had come from newspapers – though the Conservative party press release described the system as “in essence a British Iron Dome”.
In a piece authored by Badenoch in the Sun newspaper, which illustrated its front page with an image of Israel’s Iron Dome, she 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.”
But Badenoch told Today that was not the aim. “We are not building the Iron Dome. 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 said: “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.”
The shadow defence secretary, James Cartlidge, will say later at the Tory conference that the UK needs to be ready to defend itself from potential aerial attacks and that new investment is needed in advanced radar and interceptor missiles.
Asked on Times Radio if the aim was to be able to intercept any attack over the entire country, Badenoch said: “It should, but it needs to protect critical national infrastructure … Critical national infrastructure protects the entire country. If we lose even one thing, the entire country is in a real problem, and that’s what we mean.”
Badenoch will give her own speech to close the conference on Wednesday. Asked whether she was ready for an election, Badenoch told Today she believed polls would improve but she admitted the party was still unpopular because of the previous government, even though her personal popularity had improved.
“I think people still associate the Conservative party with the things they didn’t like about the previous government,” she said. “I need to work hard to change that … these things take time. I am the leader and I need to show that this party is different from the party that the people said no to two years ago.
“I am confident that when that election is called, people will see that the Conservative party has the best offer. We have a strong team, we have a plan and we’re all about common sense.”
A Labour source said: “It’s no surprise Kemi Badenoch wants to forget how the Tories hollowed out our armed forces. But hoping her half-baked defence promise based on fantasy numbers will be forgotten just hours after it was made shows how unserious she is about our country’s security. The Tories can never be given responsibility for keeping Britain safe again.”
