LONDON – Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the U.K. Parliament on Monday that U.K. strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, conducted alongside the United States, were “limited, not escalatory” and came in response to a threat to British vessels.
Sunak faced questions about why British lawmakers didn't get a say on the military action, and he didn't rule out joining further military action if Houthi attacks continue.
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Four Royal Air Force Typhoon jets took part in last week’s U.S.-led strikes on sites used by the Iran-backed rebels, who have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea. The U.S. says Friday’s strikes hit Houthi weapons depots, radar facilities and command centers.
Sunak told lawmakers that British jets targeted launch sites for drones and ballistic missiles, and that the U.K.'s initial assessment was that all 13 planned targets had been destroyed, without civilian casualties. He said the aim was to “degrade and disrupt” the Houthis' ability to launch attacks.
The Houthis say they have targeted ships linked to Israel in response to the war in Gaza. But they have frequently attacked vessels with no clear links to Israel, imperiling shipping in a key route for global trade.
U.S. forces carried out another strike Saturday on a Houthi radar site, but the group's attempted attacks have continued.
On Monday, a missile struck a U.S.-owned cargo ship just off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden. The U.S. blamed the Houthis for the attack, which came less than a day after the Houthis fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea.
Sunak said the British participation “was intended as limited single action and we hope the Houthis will now step back and end their destabilizing attacks.” But, he added, "we will not hesitate to protect our security, our people and our interests where required.”
Keir Starmer, leader of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party, said he supported last week’s strikes, but expects more openness from the government in the future.
“If the government is proposing further action, then it should say so and set out the case, and we’re going to have to consider that on a case-by-case basis on the merits,” he said.
The smaller opposition Liberal Democrats accused the government of “riding roughshod over a democratic convention” that Parliament should get a vote on military action.
Sunak said it had been “necessary to strike at speed ... to protect the security of these operations,” so there was no chance to consult Parliament.
Sunak’s government is facing mounting demands on Britain’s ever-shrinking military in an increasingly volatile world. Hours after the strikes on the Houthis, Sunak was in Kyiv, where he announced a further 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) in military aid to Ukraine and signed a long-term security agreement with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Defense Secretary Grant Shapps, in a speech Monday on U.K. defense policy, said the combination of threats from autocratic states and non-state militant groups risked “tearing apart the rules-based international order established to keep the peace after the Second World War.”
He repeated the government’s “aspiration” to increase military spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product from its current level of just above 2%, though he didn't commit to increasing the number of British troops.
Shapps urged other NATO allies to increase their own defense spending, arguing the era of the “peace dividend” was over and nations were “moving from a postwar to a prewar world.”
Sunak — whose Conservative Party trails Labour in opinion polls ahead of an election due this year — also is struggling to revive his stalled plan to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda.
The controversial plan is central to Sunak's pledge to “stop the boats” bringing unauthorized migrants to the U.K. across the English Channel from France. More than 29,000 people made the perilous journey in 2023. Five people died over the weekend while trying to launch a boat from northern France in the dark and winter cold.
The plan has been criticized as inhumane and unworkable by human rights groups and challenged in British courts. In November the U.K. Supreme Court ruled the policy is illegal, because Rwanda isn’t a safe country for refugees.
In response to the court ruling, Britain and Rwanda signed a treaty pledging to strengthen protections for migrants. Sunak’s government argues that the treaty allows it to pass a law declaring Rwanda a safe destination.
If approved by Parliament, the law would allow the government to “disapply” sections of U.K. human rights law when it comes to Rwanda-related asylum claims and make it harder to challenge the deportations in court.
But the bill faces criticism both from Conservative centrists who think it flirts with breaking international law, and from lawmakers on the party’s authoritarian right, who say it doesn’t go far enough.
Both sides say they will try to amend the bill during two days of debate in the House of Commons that culminates in a vote on Wednesday.
Sunak said Monday that he was “confident that the bill we have got is the toughest that anyone has ever seen and it will resolve this issue once and for all.”