In the wake of the Iranian tanker crisis, does Britain still rule the waves?

THE British maritime force must be the laughing stock of the world because of its ineptitude. It was supposed to patrol the Mediterranean to prevent migrants from Libya reaching Italy and Greece, but all it did was provide a free ferry service. It is also monitoring the Channel to stop illegal immigrants coming by boat from France, but instead the Border Force and Coastguard are ferrying them to Dover. Now we have naval vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to escort vessels through the danger spots, but they failed to prevent tanker seizures. What is the Navy playing at? D. TURNER, Sevenoaks, Kent. WE HAVE the usual suspects rattling sabres, and on the other side, China, North Korea and Iran baring their teeth after U.S. sanctions against them. Somewhere in the middle we have Britain, barely able to muster more than a token gesture. As Dr Julian Lewis, the chairman of the Defence

Select Committee, puts it, the size of the Royal Navy’s fleet of warships is ‘pathetic’. So much money has been redirected away from defence that the Royal Navy has a dismal number of vessels at its disposal. During the Falklands conflict, we had 43 frigates and 12 destroyers; now, we have 13 and six. If a similar conflict were to happen now, we would be sunk! Please, Boris, fund our Armed Forces properly and give them the respect that they deserve. ASHLEY SMITH, march, Cambs. BRITAIN’S military is chronically underfunded and the crisis in Iran has highlighted our lack of ships we can deploy to the region. Britain has so far sent two destroyers to act as a deterrent and patrol shipping lanes. However, Iran has numerous fast attack boats that can knock out a target. The Royal Navy is at its lowest numbers since the Napoleonic War and is unable to act unilaterally in a theatre of operations. The selling off of warships and a lack of shipbuilding have placed our defences in a critical condition. OLIVER B. STEWARD, norwich, norfolk. I AM a former ship’s captain who sailed the Gulf and I have to warn of the horrific potential of conflict with Iran for something over which there is no national interest. All that is needed for a ship to be ‘British’ is an appointed representative who is resident in the UK or an EEA incorporated company with a UK place of business. Potentially the only thing British is a post office box. To risk conflict with Iran for a so-called British ship is absurd. The registration fee generates £153 for the British state plus other minor fees amounting to less than a couple of thousand pounds. For this the ship owner gets the full protection of the Royal Navy and British state for his multi-million-pound asset. I’m afraid that the Red Ensign has become a flag of convenience. Captain EDWARD WATERHOUSE,

Hambledon, Hants.