Chameleon Magazine

That is the question every mother and father in Britain should be asking this government.

Before ministers deepen our involvement, before they hand over more military technology, and before they provoke further warnings from Moscow, they have a responsibility to answer one simple question:

What have you done to make Britain — and our children — safer from the consequences?

Because modern conflict does not begin and end on a battlefield.

Cyberattacks can hit hospitals, schools and utilities. Sabotage can target infrastructure. Espionage and infiltration can happen quietly over years. Disinformation can divide communities from within.

And the invisible threat is already becoming harder to ignore. Iran has reportedly been linked to the recent shutdown of one of our power plants. Imagine if several plants were targeted at once — or if attacks disrupted water supplies, communications networks, hospitals or transport systems.

A hostile state may not need to fire a missile to cause serious harm. It could exploit vulnerabilities remotely, disrupt essential services and create fear without a single soldier crossing our shores.

And then there are our borders.

Britain once treated control of its borders as a fundamental part of national security. Today, many people have far less confidence that those borders are being protected with the same seriousness.

That should matter enormously if we are moving into a period of greater confrontation with Russia.

A hostile state does not need to attack where Britain is strongest. It will look for weakness. It will look for gaps. It will look for systems that are overstretched, poorly enforced or politically neglected.

So while politicians congratulate themselves for being “tough on Russia,” parents deserve to know whether somebody in Whitehall has actually asked the harder question:

If Russia retaliates indirectly, are our borders, infrastructure, companies and institutions secure enough to stop it?

Because protecting Britain used to mean protecting the country at its edges as well as defending it with ships, aircraft and missiles.

Supporting Ukraine is a policy choice. Protecting British families from the consequences is a government duty. 🇬🇧

And before they take another step towards confrontation, every parent should be asking:

How safe are our children — and why should we trust a government to protect them if it cannot convincingly demonstrate that Britain’s borders, power plants and critical infrastructure are secure?