Enda Brady: UK correspondent on drones being spotted over RAF bases

Over in the UK, concerns have been raised over the drones that were spotted over RAF bases in four English counties.

The drones ranged in 'sizes and configurations' according to new reports.

UK correspondent Enda Brady says it's unclear who is behind these incidents - but experts suspect Russia is involved.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the Brady aw UK correspondence with US now, Hey, Inda.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey Heaven, great to speak to you again.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
In the Who's drones are these that are flying over
the RAF bases?

Speaker 3 (00:10):
So we've had several incidents now ongoing for a week,
and the big suspicion is that this is being driven
by Russia. Now there's no evidence for this, but a
lot of people feel that this is low level interference
and it's Russia's response to those storm shadow missiles, the
British made missiles that the UK gave Ukraine permission being

(00:32):
given from Joe Biden's administration for Ukraine to use storm
shadows to strike targets deep inside Russia.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
That happened last week and out.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Of nowhere, we've had lots of low level, kind of
really annoying things happen. There was a security incident at
Gatwick Airport, there was another at Houston Station on the trains,
and all week long, drones have been flying in a
coordinated fashion over four different RAF bases and they just
happened to be the RAF bases that are used by

(01:01):
the United States Air Force as well. So you've got
o ref Lake and Heath and Mildenhall over in Suffolk,
and then you've got Fairford in Gloucestershire. We haven't been
able to find who's doing this. The authorities have brought
in sixty extra military personnel. They're using various different jamming
technology to try and turn the drones back on the user.

(01:21):
But every day drones are popping up at these air sites.
It's very very worrying.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Why don't they just shoot them out of the sky?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Very good point, very good question. I think there's too
many of them.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
How many are there?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Dozens? Dozens?

Speaker 3 (01:35):
And it's coordinating, Yeah, swarm of them, and it's it's
obviously look for two purposes. They could be filming and
recording and sending vision back to whoever the recipient or
the holder of the drone is. And also when a
drone is up over an airfield, they can't fly a
plane or a helicopter.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well, I would have thought the obvious thing to do
is just open fire on them, bring them down and
see who they belong to.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
You would imagine so, but clearly it's not that simple.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, obviously, Hey, so the EV targets is the government
going to soften? What are they going to do here?

Speaker 3 (02:09):
I think the car industry has kind of lost it's
cool with not just Keir Starmer, this was conservative policy
as well. The plan is to get to a position
by not long a long time ago and now you
know we're heading into twenty twenty five in a few weeks.
The plan was that we would get to a position
where Britain would not be selling any new combustion engines,

(02:31):
so no more petrol and deeseent diesel engines by twenty
thirty and fines were put in place for car manufacturers
who are not meeting a certain percentage of EV sales
each year, leading up to eighty percent of sales by
the year twenty thirty. So right now the percentage is
twenty two percent. And this week Vauxhall have come out
and said, look, we can't do this. We're just the

(02:53):
demand in Europe is not there. We're not selling enough
of the vehicles. We're shutting our plant in Luton, one
hundred jobs on the line. I think what they're going
to have to do is the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds,
on behalf of Kir Starmer, is going to have to
sit down with the leaders of the car manufacturing industry
and work out because what's going.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
To happen in January?

Speaker 3 (03:12):
If Trump goes ahead with trade tariffs on China, all
the vehicles China would have wanted to sell in the
United States, they will start dumping in the European Union
at really, really cheap prices and that will completely kill
off the car industry. Here and Heather one point, what
has already really been the death knell from manufacturing in.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
The UK for car makers. Brexit. This without a shadow
over doubt in that.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Thank you so much for talking us so I appreciate it.
As always, We'll talk to you again next week. Mate.
That's into Brady, UK Correspondent.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
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