SIR Keir Starmer has chillingly warned that threats to national security are closer to home than we think.
Speaking today at the Nato summit in The Hague, the PM said the UK is “regularly” the victim of cyber attacks by Russia and Iran.
Speaking in the wake of the UK’s new strategic review, he reiterated: “It is a mistake to think that the only threat we face is external and far off.”
Sir Keir added: “We do face threats at home, all of the time. On a daily basis, there are cyber attacks that have to be dealt with and are being dealt with.
“They are ever more sophisticated, and we need to have the capability to deal with them.
“Equally in relation to energy that has been weaponised quite obviously in the last few years.
“There are very many attempts to penetrate our systems having been dealt with by our security and intelligence services, but the fact that they are very good at their job shouldn’t detract from the fact that that is a real threat to our country, which we have to take seriously.”
It comes after all Nato members agreed to raising defence and security spending to five per cent of GDP by 2035 to make it “stronger, fairer and more lethal than ever”.
The UK will also provide “hundreds more defence missiles” to protect Ukraine.
These will be paid for with money from frozen Russian assets.
It follows a chilling new national security blueprint which set out what the UK can expect as Russia, China and Iran ramp up threats.
A strategic defence review, unveiled on Tuesday, announced that the UK will perform annual drills to anticipate what war on UK soil may look like.
Britain will now hold the yearly drills to prepare for a wide range of enemy attacks.
The new national security strategy included plans for the exercises designed to test the country’s “whole-of-society preparedness”.
These will include war and other security threats such as sabotage to power plants and undersea cables.
Ministers have committed to the annual drills which will test the response of the Government, emergency services and devolved administrations.
Possible drills may include a missile strike by a foreign state, a mass terror attack, cyber attacks or the assassination of a public figure.
The first drill will be held this autumn and will be codenamed “Pegasus”.
It will test how the Government and other public bodies would respond to a new global pandemic – five years after Covid-19 wrecked havoc across the country, triggering multiple lockdowns.
A part of these preparedness drills will include mock-ups of Cobra meetings, which are held in an emergency.
Tuesday’s report also promised “greater vigilance to the public” going forward.
This may lead to a return of Cold War-style “protect and survive” information films.
They were used between 1974 and 1980 and advised the public on how to survive a nuclear attack.
Instructions included how to prepare a fallout room, stockpiling supplies like food and water, and recognising warning signals.
The new plan focuses on three key areas – protecting the UK at home, working with allies to strengthen global security, and rebuilding Britain’s defence industries and technological capabilities.
The warning comes after Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, declared that without a major increase in defence spending, the British “better learn to speak Russian”.
The strategy said threats from other countries are on the rise.
It revealed that the UK has been “directly threatened by hostile activities including assassination, intimidation, espionage, sabotage, cyber attacks and other forms of democratic interference”.
Sir Keir Starmer admitted the country faces “daily challenges on the home front” when asked about the growing threat after the security strategy’s release.
The Government’s strategy lays bare the scale of the danger, warning: “We are in an era in which we face confrontation with those who are threatening our security.
“For the first time in many years, we have to actively prepare for the possibility of the UK homeland coming under direct threat, potentially in a wartime scenario.”
The strategy said the UK’s enemies are spreading disinformation and using social media to “stoke tensions between generations, genders and ethnic groups”.
Critical infrastructure such as undersea cables will “continue to be a target”, the document added.
It comes after RAF Top Guns will get nuclear bombers for the first time in 30 years — after PM Sir Keir Starmer said we must prepare for possible war.
The F-35As will be based at RAF Marham in Norfolk, which housed Britain’s air-launched nuclear weapons until 1998.
That was the year then—PM Tony Blair scrapped Britain’s air-launched bomb, the WE-177.
The new B-61 bombs, made by US-firm Lockheed Martin, can take out small areas — unlike Trident 2 missiles on Britain’s submarines which can obliterate whole cities.
The F-35As can also carry conventional weapons.
