American Bombers Leaving England Is Another Sign That The Lights Are Going Out All Over Europe

Almost 85 years ago, the first B-17 bombers and American crews touched down in England to help the British fight the murderous, authoritarian menace that had swept through Europe. Today, America’s fleet of B-1 stealth bombers has withdrawn from the Old Country.

It is a dangerous sign of the increasingly rapid downfall and weakness of our erstwhile ally that on the eve of this 85-year anniversary America had to remove our bombers. Due to the inability or refusal of the current government and its military to provide the security needed to protect those planes, we flew them home.

It has been 112 years since British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey warned that the lamps were going out all over Europe, and that seems to be happening not only in the United Kingdom, but in other E.U. countries like France, as well, as evidenced by the violent, ongoing riots occurring all over that country. They are facing a different but similar type of threat to their Western democracies — an increasingly dangerous Islamist Jihadist population of immigrants who not only refuse to assimilate into the cultures and traditions of their new countries, but have the goal of destroying those democracies and installing an Islamic, Sharia-based political authoritarianism as dangerous to the freedom, peace, and liberty of Europe as what we faced in two prior world wars.

How should the United States respond to the weakness of one of our key allies when it comes to that ally’s failure to address the dangers of homegrown Islamic radicalism that, among its many dangers, threatens our military assets in England? An ally who, in contrast to its sterling past, not only refuses to assist in the fight against Islamic terrorism and state sponsors of such brutality like Iran, but actually tries to hamper those efforts?

The U.K.’s Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, admitted on October 12 that a plot to attack the Royal Air Force base, RAF Fairford, where the U.S. Air Force had been parking our B-1s, was “almost certainly directed” by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. 28 allied nations backed up Burnham’s statement with supporting intelligence. Yet Burnham and the U.K. government don’t appear to be taking the plot seriously: all seven arrested suspects were released on bail. Faced with the Brits’ fecklessness, the U.S. had no choice but to return the B-1s to safety in the continental U.S.

Burnham and his predecessors have been letting homegrown Islamic radicalism fester for far too long. Burnham’s government shows no signs that it has learned anything from this security debacle. And the U.K. government has become so fearful of upsetting this radicalism that, in an apparent attempt to placate the threat, it has been aiming its internal policing at those who question or criticize it.

RAF Fairford is located in Gloucestershire, about 40 minutes south of Oxford in Oxfordshire. The U.S. Air Force has a long history there. The BBC says that RAF Fairford “has been an important base for U.S. military operations since the Cold War.” According to the 501st Combat Support Wing, “RAF Fairford boasts one of the longest flightlines in the U.K. and supports a variety of missions and exercises throughout the year.”

Having a longer flightline means that larger planes can take off and land, which directly controls the military assets that can use the base. In March 2026 — right after Operation Epic Fury kicked off — one commentator observed that RAF Fairford “is one of only two bases in Europe that can host all three of the US Air Force’s long-range bombers – the B-1 Lancer, the B-2 Spirit and the B-52 Stratofortress.”

But the U.S. had to relocate its B-1 bombers after it became obvious that the U.K. wasn’t doing enough to protect the bases on its home soil. The bombers’ return to the U.S. means they are much further from the Middle East, translating to more difficult and dangerous missions. They will be in the air much longer and require more mid-air refueling tankers to fly bombing missions, increasing total flight time and the fiscal and human costs of those missions. The U.S.’s ability to respond rapidly with maximum force in the Middle East has also been degraded.

There are real geopolitical and human costs of the U.K.’s failure to grapple with its homegrown radicals and the threat they pose not just to our military forces, but to the country’s own peace and stability. Some commentators are already calling the debacle a “win” for Iran, and they are right.

After the successful evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the beaches of Dunkirk, Winston Churchill gave one of the most stirring and powerful speeches ever heard in the Houses of Parliament. It is sad that 86 years later, his admonition that Britain would “defend our island” even to fighting “on the beaches” and in the “fields and in the streets,” and that the British people would “never surrender,” has apparently disappeared from today’s U.K.

The British government seems to have already surrendered to the menace of radical Islamist Jihad.

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Hans von Spakovsky and Bryce Poole are Senior Legal Fellows at Advancing American Freedom.

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