BBC Breakfast halted its live coverage on Wednesday morning (March 4) as World War 3 fears continue to rise. On Tuesday (March 3), the UK government deployed a Royal Navy warship to the eastern Mediterranean to bolster security around RAF Akrotiri in the heart of Cyprus. Sir Keir Starmer declared that HMS Dragon, which is a Type 45 Destroyer, will be sent to the region as the US-Israel war with Iran continues to develop. Two Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters were also deployed, which are equipped with Martlet missiles and designed to counter drone attacks.

The military support comes just 24 hours after the runway of the British air base in Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, was hit by a drone, causing what the Ministry of Defence (MoD) described as “minimal damage”. To get a deeper understanding of overseas development, Sally Nugent and Ben Thompson welcomed Europe correspondent Jessica Parker on the show as she reported live from Limassol, Cyprus.

The broadcaster began: “These military bases in Cyprus are actually part of what is the UK’s sovereign territory. UK service personnel are there, their families are there, so, of course, the United Kingdom are under pressure to try and make sure it can protect those personnel and those British citizens.

“I think the United Kingdom, the UK government, is now facing questions about how quickly it’s acting here because we don’t exactly know when HMS Dragon will arrive, but I’ve seen some estimates that it could take around a week.”

It didn’t take long before viewers flocked to X – formerly known as Twitter – to share their concerns online. One user posted: “Starmer has become the UK’s greatest coward! He will be known for sleeping while the UK slipped into WW3!” as another agreed: “Captain Hindsight strikes again!”

A third fumed: “HMS Dragon is getting loaded up in Portsmouth!! FFS how slow can it get, it’s gonna take over a week to get to its destination in Cyprus [angry emoji].” It comes after Starmer confirmed he would allow the US to use UK military bases for defensive action, but it could spell bad news for Trump.

Labour’s Secretary of State, Yvette Cooper, explained: “We made a deliberate decision to not provide support for US strikes that were taking place over the weekend. We continue to take the view that we wanted to see diplomatic progress and negotiated agreement around this threat on Iranian nuclear weapons.”

She added: “We want to continue to see a de-escalation”. There are currently an estimated 300,000 British citizens in other gulf countries that are being targeted by Iranian missiles. Concern over the prospect of US strikes against Iran led a number of countries to issue warnings to their citizens in the region last week.