Anna Sliwon-Stewart

BREAKING: The UK will buy at least 12 F-35 stealth jets that can carry nuclear bombs in the most significant strengthening of its nuclear capability in a generation, the government has said. Sir Keir Starmer will tell a summit of NATO allies in The Hague on Wednesday that the new squadron will join an alliance mission that can be armed with American nuclear weapons. The dramatic move will doubtless draw condemnation and concern from Russia and China. But it comes at a time of growing global insecurity and as the prime minister and his European and Canadian counterparts scramble to convince Donald Trump they are serious about bolstering their ability to defend Europe instead of overly relying on the United States. The American president, a long-standing NATO-sceptic, raised questions about whether he would uphold the alliance’s founding article 5 principle – that an attack on one is an attack on all – even before he arrived in the Dutch city on Tuesday evening. An urgent need to keep Mr Trump on side has prompted NATO allies to agree to increase spending on defence and national resilience to a new target of 5% of GDP by 2035. As part of this push to rearm, Sir Keir will give the Royal Air Force the ability to carry air-borne nuclear bombs for the first time since the 1990s. “In an era of radical uncertainty we can no longer take peace for granted,” he said. “These F35 dual capable aircraft will herald a new era for our world-leading Royal Air Force and deter hostile threats that threaten the UK and our allies. “The UK’s commitment to NATO is unquestionable, as is the alliance’s contribution to keeping the UK safe and secure, but we must all step up to protect the Euro-Atlantic area for generations to come.” It was not immediately clear when the F-35 jets would be bought or how much they will cost, but the new squadron will be part of a NATO-led nuclear deterrence mission. That is in contrast to the UK’s national nuclear deterrence, based on a fleet of four nuclear-armed submarines, though they too are used to defend the whole of the alliance. Mark Rutte, the head of NATO, applauded the plan. “The UK has declared its nuclear deterrent to NATO for many decades, and I strongly welcome today’s announcement that the UK will now also join NATO’s nuclear mission and procure the F-35A,” he said. “This is yet another robust British contribution to NATO”. Aircraft operated by a small number of NATO countries, including Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, are cleared to carry US-provided nuclear weapons in a war. The RAF and the Royal Navy already operate F-35B jets that can fly off Britian’s two aircraft carriers but which are not equipped to drop nuclear bombs. The new planes will be the F-35A variant, operated by the air force, that take off from land but can fly further and be armed with nuclear or conventional weapons. The government said they would all be based together at RAF Marham in Norfolk. The government has long planned to purchase a total of 138 F-35 aircraft but has so far only acquired around three dozen – seven years since the first jets entered service. The decision to purchase 12 of the A-variant does not mean extra aircraft. It just means a diversification in the fleet – something the RAF has long been pushing for but a decision that some in the Royal Navy have long pushed back against, believing it would reduce even further the number of the B-version that operate from their carriers. The government described the plan to purchase nuclear-capable aircraft as the “biggest strengthening of the UK’s nuclear posture in a generation”. The F-35 aircraft is made by the US defence giant Lockheed Martin, but the British defence company BAE Systems is also a key contributor. The order will support 20,000 jobs in the F35 programme in the UK.