UK backs missile defence shield

The US has successfully tested interceptor missiles (Photo: Missile Defense Agency)

The government has rejected a call by a former defence minister to drop support for the US missile defence system.

Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle told MPs the election of US President Barack Obama could present an opportunity for a change of policy on "son of star wars".

He also called on the government to grant MPs a debate on the issue.

Quentin Davies, replying for the government, said the system would protect Britain from a missile attack by a "rogue state".

The Fylingdales and Menwith Hill RAF bases, in North Yorkshire, are part of a US radar shield and hosts a tracking system linked to satellites and interceptor missiles based outside the UK.

The system, which is intended to destroy incoming ballistic missiles from alleged "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iran, was a central plank of former President George Bush's defence policy.

'Aggressive' stance

But President Obama has expressed doubts about its viability, saying he wants to "ensure that it is developed in a way that is pragmatic and cost-effective; and, most importantly, does not divert resources from other national security priorities until we are positive the technology will protect the American public".

Mr Kilfoyle said Mr Obama's election provided an opportunity to pull back from the "aggressive" stance of the Bush administration, particularly as Russia has abandoned plans to aim cruise missiles at Europe from Kaliningrad, in what was seen as a potential goodwill gesture to the new US administration.

We would simply have to sit and wait to see whether that day was the day of Armageddon Quentin Davies, defence minister

Speaking in a Commons adjournment debate on Wednesday, Mr Kilfoyle said: "Do the government recognise that the new US administration offer the UK and the world an opportunity to ease global tension by resiling from many of the aggressive foreign and military policies, including missile defence, of the Bush years, to which we gave knee-jerk obeisance, as an unequal partner in the so-called special relationship?"

Critics say the decision to install US missile defence tracking equipment at the RAF bases was sneaked out by the government in 2007 without MPs being given a chance to debate it, as they had been promised.

Mr Kilfoyle said the then prime minister Tony Blair showed "almost total contempt" for Parliament with that decision and he repeated his call for a debate on missile defence in Parliament.

Former Tory MP Quentin Davis, who defected to Labour in 2007, and is now a junior defence minister, said MPs were given numerous opportunities to debate defence issues.

He also hit back at Mr Kilfoyle's claim that the missile defence system was "not proven" but conceded that "there is a great deal of technical work to be done on it" and that 37 of the 47 test firings had ended in failure.

'Alternative'

He said without the system, the UK would continue to be vulnerable to attack if a rogue missile appeared on the Fylingdales radar screen, which scans "the upper atmosphere and the surrounding areas of space over quite a large section of the northern hemisphere".

"If one fine day