Grant Shapps also dismissed polling showing the Tories heading for their biggest election defeat since 1997
The UK is to deploy 20,000 troops and lead a NATO exercise that is designed to deter Vladimir Putin from threatening countries in Europe, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has said.
He told GB News: “This will be the biggest deployments of UK troops to NATO for about 40 years.
“This is an operation which is designed to essentially allow NATO to test our approach in what is…a much more dangerous world, given the conflicts in Europe, conflicts in the Middle East, but also the sort of intent of people like Putin to really disrupt the world order and our way of life, and so we'll be leading that NATO exercise which will be about 40,000 people overall.”
In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, he continued: “We've seen what Putin is capable of, we know that he's walked into a democratic neighbour in Ukraine and caused mayhem.
“And sometimes it's tempting to think, well, what's this got to do with us, but we saw last year, didn’t we, with that enormous spike in energy prices and the incredible cost to households here.
“What happens over there really does matter here as well and we know that Putin has the intent so this very large military exercise involving 30 countries - 31, because it involves Sweden who are not yet in NATO - is designed to make sure that we are ready and we've tested our approach to anything that Putin might throw our way or anyone else in the future.”
Asked about polling indicating that the Tories are heading for 1997-style defeat at the next General Election, he said: “While we have a plan that we're working to and that plan has started as see inflation really plummeting, the economy growing, we've seen tax cuts which now in January have come through and are worth about £450 pounds for somebody on the average salary.
“And I hope we can do more in that direction. In other words, we have a plan. It's working and it's starting to work.
“We'd be going right back to square one if we got Keir Starmer and Labour in now.”
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