The UK has been a great naval power. In the 2 nd World war we still had a large fleet, and rapidly developed aircraft carriers when the war revealed they are crucial to provide air cover for large surface ships.
This century all 3 parties in government ran defence spending down and reduced the number of ships. Conservatives realised it had gone too far and started to rebuild before leaving office. Instead under this government it has become a rout. The Secretary of State removed the last minesweeper from the Gulf and did not keep a frigate in the area,. He allowed most of our modern sophisticated an air attach destroyers be in for deep maintenance at the same tine and failed to prepare Dragon for timely departure to support our Cyprus base. He approved both aircraft carriers being in home ports at the same time, leaving much of the world a long sea voyage away.
It looks as if this government was planning our disengagement from the Middle East and sea routes to India and China without announcing such a dramatic change of policy. Their wish to give Diego Garcia freehold away and to give the EU and Spain considerable control over Gibraltar is symptomatic of their casual wish to end our influence and to undermine the navy.
They talk all the time of stronger links with the EU rather than NATO, oblivious of how we rely on US collaboration for our defence and in ignorance of the poor defences of most western members of the EU. The EU is not going to protect us.
The government pretends to want higher spending on defence without budgeting the money. It needs first to tell us what extra ships, planes, drones, troops we need then go about procuring them. Urgently it needs to ensure many more of our current navaL vessels are at sea or ready to sail. We should be assisting convoys in the Gulf to protect our trade.