Just kidding, the last thing he would want to do is to appear as a lily-footed coward to the British electorate on an election year! In any case, a "national" consensus has widely emerged to stomach Cotton and the EU's ideological differences and "work together" to defeat the Dragon. A wide range of sanctions and defensive deployments have been bandied out to reassure the British people that they will permanently neuter China as an aggressive world power, but of course beyond this facade of strength lies the assumption from both the British People and the government that no Briton will die for (or give much more tax money towards) the act of militarily kicking China while it's already down when sanctions can do instead.

Half of the force in the UAE (12 F-35Bs, 26 Tornados, 7 Typhoons) were destroyed on the ground. We ask the US to spot us 6 F-35Bs in FMF as a gesture toward friendship and to make sure the Queen Elizabeths actually have enough F-35Bs to run at peak capacity since it would be quite bad if they don't. In addition, we would like to begin work on further fleet interoperability. This will consist of exercises with mixed country strike groups as well as American F-35Bs potentially deploying on British carriers.

With UAE permission, we would like to overhaul our deployment to the UAE to deter further aggression, though the tacit assumption that they will only be used in conflicts of defense is still there. The deployments will ultimately consist of two Type 31s for use in less intense conflicts: HMS Pike and HMS Iris for the naval portion, 20 F-35As and 60 Mosquitos for the aerial portion, and no troops on the ground unfortunately since that sounds bad. This is being billed as a deterrent against further attacks on British personnel serving overseas and a message that no one wants a war.

To the EU exclusively: We are willing to work completely with you on sanctions to China and negotiate as a single party. China must be shown a strong message, plus we don't have much negotiating power on our own.