Britain returns 'East of Suez' with permanent Royal Navy base in Gulf, Britain is to open a permanent Royal Navy base in the Gulf as it seeks a return "East of Suez" in a major strategic reversal of course, Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, said on Saturday.
Mr Hammond said that Britain and France were intending to take up a greater security role in the Middle East as the United States "pivoted" towards Asia.
The base, which will host the Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyers as well as the two new aircraft carriers it is building, will mark a return to the Gulf 40 years after Britain pulled out in the early 1970s and wound down its overseas Empire.
"As the United States focuses more of its effort on the Asia-Pacific region, we and our European partners will be expected to take a greater share of the burden in the Gulf, the Near East and North Africa," Mr Hammond said.
David Cameron's new government four years ago made reviving Britain's old alliance with the Gulf states the key priority of its foreign policy, with high-level visits arranged immediately for Liam Fox, then defence secretary.
That was called into question almost immediately as the Arab Spring drew renewed attention to the Gulf's record on human rights, including in Bahrain, and was also set back by Mr Fox's resignation over the role played by his adviser Adam Werritty on his trips to the region.
However, Mr Hammond said that stability in the Gulf was a vital British interest, and rejected calls to "leave the Middle East to sort out their own affairs".
He also said that talks were under way for a greater army role in the region, saying that Britain was exploring the possibility of using joint training facilities in one or other Gulf state.
There has been concern in the armed forces that following the withdrawal from first Iraq and this year Afghanistan the army would lose experience in Middle East conditions, even though the region remains the most likely focus of British future military involvement.
"We are looking at how we can maintain the readiness of our land forces for 'hot and dry conditions' warfare," Mr Hammond told The Telegraph.
The new base, at a cost of £15 million, will upgrade the facilities used by four British minehunters currently working out of the Gulf.
It will enable sailors to be based permanently in Bahrain, along with their families, and massively expand the capabilities of the Mina Salman port, where the minehunters are based.
"This will guarantee the presence of the Royal Navy in Bahrain well into the future," Mr Hammond said, as he signed an agreement with the Bahraini foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa.
"The expansion of Britain's footprint builds upon our 30-year track record of Gulf patrols and is just one example of our growing partnership with Gulf partners to tackle shared strategic and regional threats."
The then defence secretary Dennis Healey announced in 1968 that British troops would be withdrawn from all major military bases "East of Aden". The decision, often described as the East of Suez declaration in reference to a poem by Rudyard Kipling, came amid economic crisis following the Harold Wilson government's devaluation of the pound and was seen as marking a formal end of the British Empire.
The Gulf states were awarded independence in 1971, and frequently bemoan the loss of British interest in the region. By contrast, the French have been investing heavily in recent years, opening a joint air, naval and land base in Abu Dhabi with the United Arab Emirates in 2009.
That base, however, cannot take the French flagship and aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.
Mr Hammond said that the security of the "homeland" began abroad."Your security is our security," he told the Manama Dialogue, a conference on Middle East affairs held by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain's capital.
Britain's determination to strengthen relations with the Gulf will be criticised by human rights and anti-arms trade campaigners. Bahrain, supported by troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, put down an uprising led by the country's Shia majority at the start of the Arab Spring in 2011, and continues to jail activists.
On Thursday, one prominent activist, Zainab al-Khawaja, was jailed for three years for tearing up a picture of Bahrain's King Hamad al-Khalifa.
Her father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, is currently serving a life term for his involvement in the 2011 protests, while her sister, Maryam, who is currently in exile in Denmark was sentenced to a year in jail in absentia on charges of assaulting police.
