A 'Britannia Shield' for Britain

Kemi Badenoch used a round of morning media interviews at the Conservative party conference to present her plan for a UK version of Israel's 'Iron Dome' missile defence system, starting at 7.30am on BBC Breakfast. The Conservatives' press release describes the proposal as a new integrated air and missile defence system to protect Britain from attack - in essence, a British 'Iron Dome' - and gives it a name of its own: the Britannia Shield.

The commitment is up to £10 billion over ten years, which the party puts at £1bn a year, funded from the defence spending rise it announced last month. Almost half of that rise would come from cuts to housing benefit. The Conservatives say a minimal deployable capability would be delivered within their first term in office, with the remaining investment expanding and strengthening the system over time.

The design, as the party sets it out, has three parts:

• •SENSE - advanced new radar systems to pick up incoming missiles and drones
• •DECIDE - upgraded command and control that integrates information from across Britain's defences and rapidly identifies the most effective response
• •EFFECT - new interceptor missiles, counter-drone capabilities and significantly larger missile stockpiles to defeat incoming threats

The threat case, and the charge against Labour

Badenoch's case, as the Conservatives put it, is that war has returned to Europe and the world will not wait for Britain to get ready. Cheap weapons, she argued, can now threaten cities, military bases and critical infrastructure in ways that would have sounded like science fiction a generation ago.

Against that picture, she said, Labour is failing the first duty of government, which she defined as defending the country and keeping people safe. The examples the party lines up:

• •Russia bombards Ukraine daily with ever more advanced drones and missiles, the party says
• •The Conservatives say Russia was behind the drone attack on Leipzig airport in August
• •Drones launched by Iranian proxies have hit the RAF base in Cyprus, the party notes
• •When Iran fired missiles at the Chagos islands earlier this year, it was the US that stepped in to launch interceptors, the Conservatives say
• •Nato allies, especially in the Baltic States, are suffering ever greater numbers of drone incursions, the party says
• •Western intelligence agencies have warned that Russia could attack a Nato country by 2030, the Conservatives cite

A November 2025 report by the defence select committee supplied the party with its benchmark: compared with European allies investing heavily in integrated air and missile defence, it warned, the UK has 'next to nothing'. Badenoch's warning to interviewers was that a missile or drone aimed at Britain would leave no second chance to wish the country had prepared.

'Patchwork Dome': the Liberal Democrats respond

The Liberal Democrats dismissed the plan as 'Truss-style fantasy economics' and said the £10bn would buy only a 'Patchwork Dome'. James MacCleary, the party's defence spokesperson, said the Conservatives either need to review their sums or come clean about which parts of the country their Patchwork Dome would not cover. On the money, his charge was that £10bn falls far short of the cost of a complete UK-wide 'Iron Dome'.

MacCleary also said the Conservatives are the party that hollowed out the armed forces for a decade, and claimed the plan to fill the defence-spending black hole rests on targeted cuts to the poorest and most vulnerable children. Making families poorer, he argued, does not make Britain safer.

The Conservatives' commitment - up to £10 billion over ten years, with a minimal deployable Britannia Shield within their first term - now moves into the conference hall: the afternoon session starts at 2pm with speeches from Alex Burghart, the deputy leader, and Tom Tugendhat, the shadow foreign secretary, with James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, also listed.