The internment at Lakenheath
On the morning of 11 February 2026 the British Army requisitioned RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Fairford under the Crown's emergency prerogative powers, disarmed approximately 1,150 American Air Force personnel and contractors, and interned them within base housing. Seventeen non-flyable American aircraft were seized. It was the first internment of American service personnel by an allied state.
The morning
Armoured Land Rovers and tactical transports carrying soldiers of 16 Air Assault Brigade arrived at the perimeter gates at 06:00 with formal requisition orders and an ultimatum: disarm, submit to escort, or face forcible entry.
Inside the 48th Fighter Wing headquarters the scene was one of paralysis. Two-thirds of active airframes and all cryptographic material had been evacuated during the preceding fortnight's retrograde. What remained could not fly. After a thirty-minute standoff at Gate 2, during which British sappers cut the electronic barrier interlocks, base leadership ordered American airmen to stand down. They were disarmed and confined to base housing while British technical teams severed satellite uplinks and secured the weapon storage facilities.
Parliament
Starmer addressed a packed and solemn House of Commons the same day. "American arms have shed British and French blood in an unprovoked, illegal act of war on sovereign allied territory. Our service personnel have been killed and captured while defending Iceland under international law. The alliance that stood for eighty years has been torn apart from Washington. We will defend this realm, our people, and our European partners with the entire, unyielding force of our national power."