{"id":14248,"date":"2019-07-23T14:30:50","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T13:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/uk-seeks-european-help-over-gulf-ships\/"},"modified":"2019-07-23T14:35:20","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T13:35:20","slug":"uk-looking-for-naval-help-in-gulf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/uk-looking-for-naval-help-in-gulf\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Looking For Naval Help In Gulf"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that Jeremy Hunt is officially not PM he can focus on the day job and that most pressing matter of – how to protect UK shipping in the Middle East with a depleted Navy? The answer lets ask those Europeans who’s Union we are about to leave with or without a trading deal to help us out. Anyway, all jokes aside the recent actions by Iran in the tit for tat impounding of a UK flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz has highlighted the need to do something and the military budget cuts mean that the UK can no longer manage this single-handedly.<\/p>\n

\"Straight

The Straight of Hormuz is a shipping bottleneck.
Image:lavizzara\/Shutterstock<\/p><\/div>\n

President Trump has been bandying around a similar suggestion for a few weeks now, however, the interest has been low as most to be perceived to join a US-led coalition against Iran especially while a glimmer of hope exists re reviving the 2015 Nuclear agreement.<\/p>\n

The idea is of benefit to both parties as currently, the UK is in a bilateral confrontation with Tehran and running to the Us for help would both inflame the tensions and make the UK look like America’s lapdog. It could also be seen as a snub by the EU not something you want when you are looking to renegotiate a trade deal in your favour.<\/p>\n

From Europe’s viewpoint, this would also be more attractive as a joint effort with a current member would be less provoking than signing up with President Trump, a consideration given that Iran may have missiles<\/a> capable of hitting parts of Europe.\u00a0 If as Iran alleges the impounding of the tanker was due to a collision with a fishing boat then this could all blow over quite quickly, however, if it is part of a more nefarious strategy then this idea needs to be developed into a working plan, at least while the Uk rebuilds its naval fleet.<\/p>\n

More here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that Jeremy Hunt is officially not PM he can focus on the day job and that most pressing matter of – how to protect UK shipping in the Middle East with a depleted Navy? The answer lets ask those Europeans who’s Union we are about to leave with or without a trading deal to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,33,5],"tags":[1483,1191,1224],"class_list":["post-14248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-european-news","category-middle-east","category-uk-news","tag-gulf","tag-iran","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14248"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14284,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248\/revisions\/14284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}