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Just a day after Donald Trump floated the idea of turning the Strait of Hormuz into a “joint” tollbooth to enrich the US and Iran, the British government revealed joint operations with Norway to protect Nato’s northern flank.
The move, combined with a visit this week by Sir Keir Starmer to the Arabian Gulf, are growing signs that even Europe’s Anglo-Saxons are pulling away from Washington. The UK and its allies are determined to defend the alliances and principles of international law that the US president and his deputy are keen to destroy.
John Healey, the defence secretary, revealed that a British frigate and spy planes had been involved in monitoring two Russian spy submarines and an attack sub as they surveyed undersea cables and pipelines in the “high north”.
Healey made it clear that Russia had taken the opportunity of the focus shifting to the Middle East, following Trump and Israel’s illegal attacks on Iran, to continue its “hybrid war” against Nato.
HMS Somerset and HMS St Albans with a Merlin helicopter tracking a Russian vessel (MoD)
Frustrated by the refusal of members of the alliance to take part in the attacks on Iran and of many to allow US forces to use bases on their territory for the operations, Trump has repeated his threats to withdraw America from the organization altogether.
Russia’s operations in the Arctic are a threat to US national security. Iran’s military reach does not extend to the US and it has never posed a danger, beyond allegedly sponsoring terrorist groups, to the American mainland.
Healey was pointed but diplomatic in his remarks about the latest Nato operation, which involved a Norwegian frigate and aircraft alongside the Royal Navy. Operation Firecrest this year will see HMS Prince of Wales lead a carrier strike group into the high north and North Atlantic.
“In the last few weeks, while the eyes of many were trained on the Middle East, the UK, in partnership with Norway and other allies, have responded to increased Russian activity in the Atlantic north of the UK.
“Our armed forces left them in no doubt that they were being monitored, that their movements were not covert, as President Putin planned, and that their attempted secret operation had been exposed.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visiting allies in the Gulf (PA Wire)
“I’m making this statement to call out this Russian activity, and to President Putin, I say, ‘We see you, we see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated, and will have serious consequences,’” he said at a press conference called in London on Thursday.
He added that “the high north is no less vital to our UK security today than it was when the current conflict erupted in the Middle East”.
The UK, he said, wanted to see a ceasefire in the Middle East that included an immediate end to fighting in Lebanon, which Israel has invaded and is bombing in an effort to destroy the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement. Tehran has said that a ceasefire with the US must include Lebanon too.
And in a further subtle sign that the UK would sidestep Trump’s ideas of a tollbooth shared with Iran as a money spinner in the Strait of Hormuz, he insisted that Britain would want to see international law upheld and that Gulf countries agreed that such a system would be dangerous.
“It isn’t actually doable… a compromise of that freedom of navigation of the seas and the introduction of any sort of paper passage or tolls would create a potential principle that could be used and abused by others elsewhere,” he said.
A man walks away as a black plume of smoke rises from a warehouse in the industrial area of Sharjah City, UAE (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
America’s Gulf allies have been rattled by Trump’s joint attack with Israel, a country led by a Prime Minister facing indictment for crimes against humanity. Iran’s response has throttled oil exports and targeted their territory.
Sir Keir’s visit this week offers the UK and opportunity to offer a sympathetic ear and some soft power politics for Britain, which was the dominant colonial power in the region until the 1970s.
Meanwhile the UK is driving a vocal effort to keep the focus of Nato, if not America, on where the threat to security in the North Atlantic really lies.
“We recognize Russia as the primary threat to the UK and to Nato, and that we will not take our eyes off Putin. At the same time, we act to protect our British interests and our British allies in the Middle East,” Healey said.
Russia, he added, continues to supply intelligence to Iran as well as training and drone technology which has been used in attacks on the Gulf, on the US, and on other Nato members in the Middle East.
Trump has refused to address Vladimir Putin’s support for Iran at all since launching the conflict in February.
But his deputy, JD Vance, has been in Hungary explicitly violating diplomatic norms by openly backing Viktor Orban’s candidacy in this weekend’s general elections.
Vance is an exponent of the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory that Europe is being overrun by non-white immigrants and faces “civilizational erasure”.
JD Vance with Viktor Orbán (AP)
The Trump administration has taken an explicit anti-European Union and anti-Ukrainian stand for the last year, backing Russia’s claims to territory in eastern Ukraine and cutting military aid to Kyiv.
In Hungary, Vance accused the EU of election tampering against the 16-year rule of Orban, who also backs Russia against the EU.
He said that cutting Russian oil and gas imports after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine was a “mistake” and accused Kyiv, without any evidence, of trying to interfere in US elections. The Kremlin has been shown to have done that, not Kyiv.
Healey made it clear, without naming either Trump or Vance, that they were looking in the wrong direction and were backing the wrong side.
He said that the UK would “and step up … on European leadership within Nato. And that, in many ways, is exactly what we’re doing with this operation.
“We’re demonstrating and dealing with allies – threats to Nato’s northern flank. and reinforcing the deterrence and the defense of our NATO alliance with this operation, where the threats are greatest, which is from Russia and in the high North”.
In short, the UK and its Nato allies are stepping up their Nato efforts to defend themselves – and save America from itself.