The United Kingdom will send a Royal Air Force (RAF) Voyager tanker aircraft to provide “defensive” air-to-air refuelling to Saudi jets against Houthi attacks, Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, saying he had agreed to a Saudi request for military support. The aircraft, based at the British base of Akrotiri in Cyprus, is expected to begin operating within days and the mission is “time limited”, according to BBC News, which reports it involves a single aircraft and that the support is limited to defending the country from drones and missiles rather than backing strikes on Yemen. Defence Minister Luke Pollard told Sky News, according to Middle East Eye, that the decision is about British “national security” and that “in dangerous times, good friends stand together”. Besides the Voyager, Saudi Arabia already hosts the Sky Sabre air defence system, and the Houthis have claimed drone and ballistic missile attacks on Riyadh and on energy sites on the Red Sea coast in recent days. The announcement came the same day the United Nations (UN) Refugee Agency (UNHCR) projected that around 230,000 displaced people in Yemen and another 10,000 refugees in Djibouti may need humanitarian assistance in the coming months, according to spokesperson Babar Baloch, cited by Middle East Eye.
22 Sep · 07:50
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham makes his UN General Assembly debut on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, and holds his first meeting with Donald Trump on the sidelines of the gathering, with Ukraine, the risks and opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI) and the cost of the conflict in the Middle East on the agenda, according to The Associated Press. Burnham, in office since July, said he will seek “common ground” with Trump and that the two had “found a connection” in two phone calls; in 2017, as mayor of Greater Manchester, he said the US president would not be welcome in the city, and in 2019 he said he would refuse to meet Trump. He is expected to urge Trump to send interceptor missiles to bolster Ukraine’s air defences before another winter of war, and the British government wants to discuss how to restore the free passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, blockaded since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran in February 2026, according to AP. The closure of the route has pushed oil prices up and complicates the British economy.