𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Tom Tugendhat witnessed the intense realities of war as a military officer in Afghanistan’s Helmand province and now he is on a mission to rescue Britain from the risk of attack.

“It’s inevitable that we will be deeply and viciously challenged if we are not capable of protecting ourselves,” the former security minister warns. “The best way to prevent war is to be properly armed and to deter an aggressor.”

The 52-year-old is moved to anger as he describes the decline of Britain’s armed forces and the message this has sent to both allies and foes. He is appalled at the timidity of the country’s response to the Salisbury’s poisonings and the assassination of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.

When asked whether he expects to see the UK at war with Russia in his lifetime, he says: “In some ways we already are. Russia is already using incredibly violent means against us. They are already murdering people on our streets. They are already sowing division and trying to to do huge harm here.”

He looks to the Thatcher era for inspiration for how to deter an aggressive enemy. Britain’s liberation of the Falkland Islands, he argues, hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“When the Russians saw that even NATO’s second power could project force half the way around the world and win a battle, they realised that they couldn’t win in Europe,” he argues.

Since then the size of the British Army has plummeted and he fears the true “deployable force” may be in the low thousands. He claims the country lacks a “credible artillery” and is horrified the shrinking of the Royal Navy means we no longer have the “maritime capability to defend our shores”.

Mr Tugendhat does not pretend his own party, the Conservatives, can escape responsibility for allowing the whittling away of the nation’s defences.

“This is something that has been going on for 30 years and we have been wrong for 30 years,” he says.

A key worry is that Russia will attack undersea communications and energy infrastructure. Not only will the nation face the cost of the disruption and the repairs, he warns, there would be panic on the financial markets because the UK is “so clearly and obviously vulnerable that it cannot defend itself”.

“The cost to the UK Exchequer will be many, many times what we should be spending on defence,” he predicts.

It is not too late to overhaul Britain’s defences, including to guard against a land invasion, he argues, but this will require political will. And he considers the chaos in the Labour party, as the country waits to see whether Sir Keir Starmer will be replaced as Prime Minister, as a block on action.

“The reality is there are major changes that are eminently possible and able to be achieved quickly,” he says. “But they require some really serious political decisions. And at the moment, the Labour party is going through another sort of psychodrama. Who’s going to be the Defence Secretary at the end of the year? None of us know, right? None of us know who the Chancellor will be; none of us know who the Prime Minister will be.”

As someone who twice ran for the Conservative leadership, he knows what it is like to be in a party in turmoil, but there is no hint of schadenfreude as he watches Labour’s present woes.

“Nobody can plan anything,” he says. “This is really dangerous.”

Mr Tugendhat has seen how nations can spiral into chaos when extremists and hostile powers run amok. In his early 20s he headed to Lebanon to work as a journalist.

“I sometimes can’t believe I did it,” he remarks.

Iran-backed Hezbollah “has destroyed that country,” he says, adding: “What the Iranians did to that country has been utterly criminal. They have effectively enlisted and enrolled thousands of young Lebanese Shia who have since been sent to die on the orders of Tehran, and it’s utterly grim.”

Iran, he insists, is run by an “absolutely brutal death cult” and the “best case scenario for everybody, particularly for the Iranian people, is for this regime to die”.

Mr Tugendhat speaks of Britain with the love of someone who has journeyed far from the UK and understands what makes the country unique. He delights in the fusion of its ancient kingdoms and the enduring distinctiveness of its regions.

“Yorkshire is not like Kent,” he says. “Cornwall is not like Cumbria. Scotland is not like Wales.”

Division, he warns, is the “greatest security threat”. He describes how foreign “bots” are being used to fuel Scottish separatism with the goal of splitting Scotland – home of the Faslane nuclear submarines base – from the rest of the UK.

“It would neuter the military, and it would make any form of nuclear deterrent very, very hard to maintain,” he says. “And they know that.”

He combines an academic’s curiosity with a readiness for adventure which has spurred his travels and his journey into politics. He studied theology at Bristol and then took a Master’s degree in Islamic studies at Cambridge, which involved learning Arabic in Yemen. He enlisted in the Territorial Army and when the Iraq war broke out he was mobilised to serve as an Arabic-speaking intelligence officer with the Royal Marines.

When asked why he signed up, he says: “I did it because I think it matters. I mean, I think our country matters.”

At the Foreign Office’s request, he helped establish Afghanistan’s National Security Council and after further years with the Royal Marines he became the Chief of the Defence Staff’s military assistant and principal adviser.

Does he think politicians can learn from the military?

“The nice thing about the military is you know where the enemy is,” he says.

He plans to make a series of speeches highlighting where Britain needs to strengthen its defences. But does he want to leave the backbenches for a frontline role in Kemi Badenoch’s core team?

“I’m very pleased to have the ability to speak out at the moment,” he says. ‘And, you know, I am a huge supporter of Kemi. I think she’s conducting herself brilliantly. I think she’s demonstrating all the right leadership traits that we want to see in a Conservative leader. She’s punchy, she’s funny, but most of all, she is absolutely on the money on the policies that matter. “She’s focusing ruthlessly on the economy and what makes this country strong. So she has my complete support and I’m very happy to support her through ideas from the backbenches.”

Mr Tugendhat, who represents the Kent seat of Tonbridge, clearly enjoys his new freedom, and de-stresses by playing with his “fantastic” children, aged 12 and nine.

He has described himself as a “Catholic Brit with a French mother and English father”. His Vienna-raised grandfather came to the UK to study and converted from Judaism to Catholicism so he could marry the woman who would become Mr Tugendhat’s grandmother.

On his office wall he keeps a portrait of Thomas More, the martyred Catholic saint who served as Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor before being executed for treason.

Describing his quiet Catholic faith today, he says: “I do my thing and it affects me but it’s nothing to do with anybody else.”

He is far more outspoken about the dangers facing Britain and the urgent need to fund our armed forces.

“It’s not a budget dispute,” he says. “This is a fundamental dispute as to whether or not we are willing to deter our enemies who are actually at war with us now.”

Until the UK’s military wins the resources it needs, Mr Tugendhat will not leave this battle.