The UK will be involved in fighting a war in the near future and the country needs to prepare for that, according to the Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood.
The former chair of the Commons Defence Select committee told GB News that the UK is "going to face war of some form" and we "need to prepare".
Speaking to host Camilla Tominey, Ellwood claimed: "There are different forms of warfare. It isn't just the MoD and the FCO and Whitehall, it's actually the entire nation as well.
"We've had three decades of relative peace and we've got some very difficult years ahead."
Tobias Ellwood claims the UK 'needs to prepare for war'
GB News
This comes reports in the Sunday Telegraph claim Britain's former ministers are "failing to prepare for war", as the conflict in Israel between the IDF and Hamas continues to escalate.
Ellwood stated: "There is a 1937 feel to our world now, we need to wake up to that and that includes great investment in defence."
Asked if defence spending should rise to 3 per cent of GDP, he told Camilla: "If you throw 3 per cent at the military now, they will spend it in all sorts of curious ways which aren't necessarily aligned to what the threats are coming over the hill.
"The Army will want more tanks and personnel, the Navy will want more ships, and obviously the RAF will want more planes, but we're being attacked in very different ways."
Tobias Ellwood says the world has a '1937 feel to it'
GB News
Ellwood highlighted that the "symbiotic relationship" between the UK's economy and our security is "absolutely ever more critical than it's ever been before".
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Ellwood explained: "The first thing you do is take stock of the types of threats that we're going to have to deal with, which can be very different from the traditional army, air force, or navy, although clearly we're going to have to defend those too.
"The Red Sea is a great example."
He continued: "If we don't defend our waters, for example, that impacts on our economy and the economy impacts on the Treasury and that impacts on every single department, not just the MoD.
"That's why we first need to have a defence review before we throw money at the MoD or our security in general."
Former Defence Minister James Heappey claimed the UK is 'a very long way behind' in preparations
PA
Asked if the UK should stop supplying arms to Israel following criticism from civil servants, Ellwood responded: "If Israel is deemed to breach international law, we have no choice but to honour international law and therefore freeze arm sales.
"I absolutely support Israel's right to prosecute and to go after Hamas after what they did.
"But I also disagree with Israel's military response, which seems to be without clarity of what its strategy is."
