<![CDATA['Leaky Lizzie' or pride of the fleet? UK's most advanced aircraft carrier eyes global role after mishaps]>
Families of personnel at the Portsmouth Naval Base in southern England enjoyed a day out last week on the HMS Queen Elizabeth, the UK's largest ever warship, which at 280 metres in length is longer than Britain's Houses of Parliament.
Children were given a rare glimpse inside the 65,000-tonne vessel's control towers, aircraft hangar and enormous four-acre flight deck, with its ski launch ramp for fighter jet take-offs.
The visit, part of a series of public relations exercises underway for the £3.1 billion (US$3.9 billion) aircraft carrier, follows a succession of mishaps concerning the mammoth ship that has taken more than 10 years and 10,000 workers to build.
Once operational in 2020, the ship, which will be the first aircraft carrier the UK has had in operation for a decade, will replace the HMS Albion as the Royal Navy's flagship.
Last February, the vessel was the centre of a major diplomatic rift after the then Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson announced he would send Britain's most advanced military vessel to the Pacific on its maiden voyage, with a contingent of advanced F-35 aircraft.
Williamson, a committed Brexiteer, made the announcement as part of his plan to strengthen the UK military's role in the new "Global Britain".
An F-35B fighter jet flies above the HMS Queen Elizabeth. Photo: Lockeed Martin
Beijing was not amused.
China read this to mean the South China Sea, and responded by cancelling a business trip to Beijing by Philip Hammond, the UK's then finance minister.
"In an age when hot and cold wars should be long gone, resurrecting the cold war and gunboat diplomacy from the grave, as this politician did, was anachronistic and risks disrupting the progress of China-UK relations," Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to Britain wrote in an article in The Guardian shortly after Williamson's announcement.
Williamson was later sacked by Prime Minister Theresa May for leaking to the press a National Security Council steer from May to include Huawei in the UK's 5G network infrastructure, which he was against.
He was replaced by Penny Mordaunt, a naval reservist and someone who was more sympathetic to China, or at least understood that the global balance of power has changed.
But following his victory in the Conservative Party leadership contest, the UK's new Prime Minister Boris Johnson sacked her, in a move that surprised many, as Mordaunt is pro-Brexit, and was seen as being good at her job.
Williamson, who ran the whip for Johnson in the Tory leadership race, is back in the Cabinet, but this time with a new brief " education where the only outlet for his jingoism will be the school curriculum.
Little is yet known of the future foreign policy direction of the new government.
The 65,000-tonne ship has been hailed as Britain's most advanced military vessel. Photo: UK Royal Navy
With the October 31 exit date from the European Union looming, all guns are currently focused on Brexit.
But it is highly likely China, who the UK will need more than ever as a trading partner if and when it leaves the EU, will seek reassurances on the destination of HMS Queen Elizabeth.
The defence secretary job has gone to Ben Wallace, a former Scots Guard, who may likely favour the army over the navy.
But when it comes to the HMS Queen Elizabeth, for the moment he should be concerned about leaks of another kind.
She was in port last week, decks scrubbed for visitors, after having returned early from five weeks of sea trials because of a major leak on-board, that according to the BBC, saw water rise "neck-high" in flooded areas.
The flight control tower on HMS Queen Elizabeth. Photo: UK Royal Navy
The water was believed to have come from a ruptured pipe, caused by a faulty temporary coupling, which caused some internal damage, the BBC reported.
The Royal Navy described it as a "minor issue relating to water from an internal system" and said the ship had returned early from sea trials as a "precautionary measure" with an investigation into the cause underway.
But according to the pro-Scottish independence newspaper The National, the Ministry of Defence down the leak this month, claiming four crew members were nearly killed after thousands of tonnes of seawater flooded the ship, buckling doors and two of the ship's 16 decks.
An F-35B jet on the flight deck of the HMS Queen Elizabeth. Photo: UK Royal Navy
It wasn't the first time that "Big Lizzie", or "Leaky Lizzie" as she has been called lately, has run into problems.
In 2017, a leaky seal in one of its propeller shafts was reported and there are claims there have been other incidents.
"This is apparently the third time one of these couplings has failed " the first time should have been enough to raise some serious questions around safety," Scottish Nationalist MP Douglas Chapman whose constituency includes Rosyth, where a large part of the ship was built.
"I hope this is a wake-up call to the MoD that it cannot sacrifice the safety of crew members in favour of cost-cutting."
He called for a full investigation, and another into procedures of the sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, currently under construction at the Scottish shipyard.
Defence experts say these kinds of teething pains are to be expected for a vessel so large and complex, which is why there are so many sea trials before it goes into operation.
Three weeks before the latest leak, the ship's captain, Commodore Nick Cooke-Priest, was dramatically flown off the ship as it was anchored in the Firth of Forth amid allegations, reportedly from his own sailors, that he had broken rules by taking the company car for his own personal use.
He has since been replaced by a new commodore, Captain Steve Moorhouse.
HMS Queen Elizabeth will return to the US east coast this year to do a second set of trials, following trials there last Autumn involving two US F-35 aircraft flown by British test pilots and an American.
The UK's new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, during a visit to New York last year. Photo: UK Royal Navy
These trials will be more operationally focused and will use a number of UK F-35B aircraft assets with UK pilots, according to naval defence analyst Richard Scott.
With two years to go until the aircraft carrier becomes operational, and with the rapidly shifting sands of UK politics in the age of Brexit, it is impossible to say if the Pacific will be HMS Elizabeth's first destination.
The ongoing capture of a Swedish-owned British-flagged ship by Iran in the Straits of Homuz has thrown a spotlight on other possible flashpoints.
The Stena Impero was seized in the strait more than a week ago in what was seen as a tit-for-tat measure in response to the British capture of an Iranian tanker in Gibraltar, accused of smuggling fuel to Syria, violating European sanctions.
The UK last Thursday pledged to use some of its naval vessels to accompany cargo ships through the straits, after US President Donald Trump told the UK flatly not to ask the US for help.
But the incident has exposed the thinness of UK naval resources, after years of cuts.
"Since 2015 I've been telling the UK Gov that they didn't have enough ships if they wanted to rule the waves #GlobalBritain " 60% of UK waters lie off Scotland. They haven't significantly sized Royal Navy surface ships based here to defend us, never mind in the Straits of Hormuz," Chapman tweeted last week.
If Defence Secretary Wallace is still in his job in two years, he will decide where to send the Royal Navy's most precious resource, HMS Queen Elizabeth.
At the moment, it is far from certain its maiden voyage will be to the Pacific.
A report on UK- China relations published earlier this year by the UK Parliament's influential Foreign Affair Committee, criticised the May government for not having a clear strategic narrative for its participation in specific naval operations to uphold freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
It said the purpose of UK operations in the South China Sea should be to uphold international law.
"We believe that to use freedom of navigation purely to demonstrate military power, or as a sign of Britain's global presence, would be a mistake," the report said.
Merlin helicopters on the deck HMS Queen Elizabeth. Photo: EPA
"By leaving the government open to cynical accusations of belligerence and militarisation of the region, it could undermine the legal principles that the UK is trying to protect. This is not the right instrument to send broader strategic messages to China."
Military experts agree.
"I'm not sure it would be the place for a capital warship like that," said Peter Felstead, Editor of Jane's Defence Weekly.
"We need to maintain freedom of operations in that area in conjunction with other countries. I don't think an aircraft carrier is the thing to be doing it with. It would be much better done with a frigate that can operate independently on its own " if you take an aircraft carrier you need other ships to support it " I would argue it is the wrong ship for that job."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
