A CYBER ARMY FOR BRITAIN – WE’VE GOT ONE, SO LET’S USE IT..!!
The closure of JLR costs directly and indirectly hundreds of million - the nation needs to fight back with deadly force against these modern day pirate's.
Jaguar Land Rover today announced its factories will stay shut even longer after the latest wave of cyber attacks. Professor David Bailey, a globally renowned expert on the automotive industry and industrial policy, warns the closures could cost JLR around £120 million in lost profits, with up to 50,000 cars left unbuilt if disruption drags on. He also cautions that the deepest damage may hit the supply chain — where smaller firms, already stretched, could face collapse
They’re not alone: M&S, the Co-op, Harrods — all victims of the modern-day pirates who now raid through fibre-optic cables. Britain already has a cyber army in one of its most secretive special forces units: the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR). They mix brains, tech and deadly force. So why aren’t we unleashing them?
Rule Britannia and the Cyber Pirates
Jaguar Land Rover, Marks & Spencer, the Co-op — all recent casualties. In the old days, pirates boarded ships in the dead of night. Now they slip through servers. They don’t wield cutlasses; they wield stolen log-ins and phishing scams.
We dress it up as “cyber crime.” But let’s be honest: this is hostile action against our people, our economy, and our sovereignty. In any other age, we’d call it war.
If a foreign force were attacking British factories, we’d mobilise troops. If saboteurs were wrecking supply chains, we’d send in special forces. Why not now? Why not the shadow regiment built precisely for this?
The men — and women — in the shadows
The SRR is the quietest arm of UK special forces, established in 2005. It grew out of 14 Intelligence Company in Northern Ireland and pulls in personnel from across the Army, Royal Signals, RAF Regiment, and Royal Marines. Unlike the SAS (Special Air Service) or the SBS (Special Boat Service), their focus is surveillance, intelligence, infiltration — and increasingly, cyber operations.
They blend into hostile places, intercept communications, plant sensors, follow digital footprints. Many are signals specialists with the tools to crack networks and trace intruders across borders. But they are also soldiers, trained to switch from patient shadowing to lethal force in a heartbeat.
And unlike other special forces units, the SRR was designed from the outset to include women. Geoff Hoon, Defence Secretary at the time, insisted on it. That diversity of perspective is part of what makes them uniquely adaptable.
Brains, technology, and combat skill — that is their armoury. If Britain were ever serious about taking the fight to cyber pirates abroad, there is no unit better placed to do it.
Britain strikes back
The Barbary corsairs once raided for generations, enslaving thousands and humiliating governments into paying tribute. Then Britain said: no more.
By 1816, Admiral Lord Exmouth led the Royal Navy against Algiers, bombarded the city, and forced the release of over 1,200 slaves. Treaties followed. Piracy collapsed.
It was not elegant diplomacy. It was blunt force. Britain acted, the world adapted, and the rules of trade were reset.
That is what Rule, Britannia! meant in practice.
Cyber pirates of today
Fast-forward to today. The pirates are back, only their ships are emails, their cannon fire is ransomware, and their hostages are data.
Groups like Scattered Spider and ShinyHunters use social engineering tricks — impersonating staff, exploiting weak supply chains, manipulating help-desks. The result: chaos, shutdowns, stolen data, trashed reputations.
They are doing what the corsairs once did — preying on trade and making nations pay tribute. And once again, they operate under the indulgent eye of states that protect them.
Resetting the rules
So what do we do? Pay tribute in the form of cyber insurance premiums? Or hope that regulators — the National Cyber Security Centre, the Information Commissioner’s Office, Ofcom — fine companies enough to wake them up? These regulators are toothless, reactive, and largely ineffective against hostile actors who don’t care about paperwork.
This is where the chorus begins: “Well, my concern is…”
To hell with that. Concern never won a war. Concern is what pirates feed on. We need action, not inertia.
Start with the Five Eyes nations — the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. They already share intelligence. Now make it economic. If a country wants privileged trade with them, it must crush cyber pirates on its soil. If not, then accept the alternative: Five Eyes forces have the right to act inside its borders.
That is how piracy was defeated two centuries ago. International law changed because one navy made piracy untenable.
BREXMIS — steel and civility
Of course, hard power is not enough. Britain also needs a civilised framework: transparent, cooperative, resilient. That is where BREXMIS comes in — the British Expeditionary Mission in Cyberspace.
Think of it as a civilian cyber corps: coders, lawyers, engineers, communicators. A reserve force for the digital age. A national cyber shield backed by government but drawing in the private sector and academia.
Together, the shadow regiment and BREXMIS would give Britain balance: the deterrent steel of special forces, and the everyday resilience of civilian expertise.
BRIXMIS – the Cold War precedent
And if BREXMIS sounds fanciful, remember this: we’ve done something very similar before.
After the Second World War, Britain set up BRIXMIS — the British Commanders’-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in Germany. On paper, it was a liaison arrangement: a diplomatic mission so both sides could talk while occupying Germany. In practice, it became one of the most effective intelligence-gathering operations of the Cold War.
BRIXMIS teams, usually three men in a car, were legally entitled to travel around East Germany in marked vehicles. They wore uniform, they had papers, and they were “liaison officers.” But what they really did was observe Soviet troop movements, photograph new equipment, measure airfields, and keep tabs on exercises. Sometimes they were obstructed, sometimes chased, occasionally shot at — but the Soviets tolerated it because the arrangement cut both ways.
This was legal spying, by treaty. It gave Britain and its allies a window into the Warsaw Pact without starting a war.
A modern BREXMIS could work in the same spirit: a legal, treaty-based mission that lets Britain and its Five Eyes partners intervene, monitor, and if necessary neutralise cyber threats that originate abroad. BRIXMIS proved that you can build a framework where hostile states permit your presence, provided the rules are clear. The Cold War didn’t collapse into chaos because of it — in fact, it made the balance more stable.
That’s the pedigree of BREXMIS.
The steel we lack
Lawyers will howl. Sovereignty! Proportionality! Human rights! All important. But when cyber gangs hold hospitals and energy grids to ransom, the old playbook is not enough.
Britain didn’t wait for Ottoman permission to bombard Algiers. We acted — and piracy withered.
We cannot leave the defence of our economy to underfunded regulators and overworked IT help-desks. We need deterrence. We need to make cyber piracy dangerous again — for the pirates.
That doesn’t mean shadow troops rappelling into apartment blocks tomorrow. But it does mean building the mindset, structures, and legal frameworks that make such action thinkable — and therefore prevent attacks before they start. And if hesitation ever creeps in, then send in the SRR, decisively and without apology.
Rule Britannia — again
The Barbary corsairs seemed unstoppable. For generations they raided, enslaved, and humiliated governments into paying tribute. But Britain said: no more.
Today’s cyber pirates look unstoppable too. They loot companies, cripple supply chains, and hold us hostage to their keyboards. But history shows that once a nation decides to act, the tide can turn.
Rule, Britannia! was never just a song. It was a statement of intent. And if Britons truly never shall be slaves, then we must face cyber piracy with both the steel of our shadow regiment and the civility of BREXMIS — ready to fight in the dark when needed, and ready to defend in the open every day.