Kemi Badenoch has warned that Britain is already facing a form of warfare, accusing the Government of complacency as cyber-attacks, suspected sabotage and hostile intelligence operations increasingly threaten the country’s businesses and critical infrastructure.
Speaking at a defence rally aboard the historic warship HMS Wellington in London, the Conservative leader described a campaign of “hybrid warfare” being waged by hostile states against Western countries, with consequences reaching far beyond the battlefield.
“Warfare is changing, in so many different ways – we are at war, now. Hybrid warfare, unconventional warfare,” she said.
Badenoch pointed to last year’s cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover, which she said had left the manufacturer’s operations and supply chains “completely crippled”. She claimed the incident was linked to Moscow and put the cost to the British economy at £2bn.
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She also cited an attack on a British power plant allegedly connected to Iranian hackers, North Korean cyber-criminals stealing cryptocurrency to evade sanctions and fund the country’s military, and recent attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems across Europe.
The latter incidents, which disrupted stores and forced retailers to discard spoiled food, illustrated how digital attacks could translate into immediate pressure on ordinary households.
“If people think that unconventional warfare has nothing to do with them, it has everything to do with them,” Badenoch told the Daily Express.
“If the supermarkets get shut down for a day or two, we’re all going to be in trouble. We need to stop being complacent. This is real.”
The Tory leader also warned that Russian spy vessels were operating in the English Channel and monitoring Nato exercises, arguing that Britain needed to prepare for threats that could target infrastructure without a conventional military confrontation.
Her intervention comes amid growing concern over the vulnerability of essential services to cyber-attacks. The National Cyber Security Centre has separately warned that an AI-powered ransomware attack against UK critical national infrastructure is highly likely by 2028.
Badenoch accused Labour ministers of having their “heads in the sand like ostriches”, directing particular criticism at Chancellor John Healey over the Government’s defence spending plans.
Healey resigned as defence secretary earlier this year after a dispute over funding, having argued that Britain needed a clear commitment to spend 3 per cent of national income on defence by 2030.
The October Budget confirmed a target of reaching that level by 2030, but left the detailed funding pathway to next year’s spending review. The Government also plans to reach NATO’s 3.5 per cent target by 2035. Badenoch said: “He resigned over that and yet they are still not funding defence to three per cent of GDP. They have a plan to make a plan to get the plan. This is not serious.”
She dismissed advice for households to stockpile three days of tinned food as an inadequate response to the threat of drone or missile attacks.
“Stockpiling three days of tinned food is not what’s going to save us if there is a drone attack or a nuclear missile attack,” she said.
Labour rejected the Conservatives’ criticism. Defence minister Luke Pollard challenged Badenoch’s record on military preparedness, saying: “If the Conservatives care so much about defence, why did they cut our army to its smallest size since the Napoleonic Wars and leave our armed forces, in the words of their own Defence Secretary, ‘hollowed out and underfunded’?”
The exchange highlights a growing political argument over whether Britain’s defence priorities and investment are keeping pace with threats that increasingly blur the boundaries between military conflict, cyber warfare and attacks on civilian infrastructure.
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