More than 100,000 British nationals in the Gulf have registered with the Foreign Office, as the UK prepares evacuation plans in response to the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Monday that there were about 300,000 British-linked people in Gulf states where US military bases have been targeted by Iranian retaliation following Washington's offensive.
British nationals are being advised to follow the instructions of local authorities and monitor the Foreign Office's travel advice, which officials expect to change rapidly. Those in Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Palestine, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been urged to register their presence with the Foreign Office online.
An evacuation could be one of the largest in the UK's history, complicated by its scale and the number of countries people might need to leave.
The UK evacuated 15,000 British nationals and eligible Afghans after US withdrawal in 2021 in what is currently considered the largest operation of its kind to date.
Although the UK has used the registration scheme before to provide urgent updates to people affected by international crises, it has not needed to deal with so many people in so many countries.
Britons can register their presence by filling in a form on the gov.uk website. They need to select which country they are registering from, and then provide an email address and mobile phone number that they have access to, as well as their UK passport number.
Every Briton in a family will need to register separately, such as spouses and children. But the form also asks people to specify whether they have non-British spouses or children with them.
Ms Cooper told BBC Breakfast: “The latest figure I have from this morning is we have 102,000 people (who) have responded to our proposal to ask people to register their presence so we know where they are, particularly in these Gulf countries that have been targeted so we know where they are and so that we can get them rapid information.
“In many of these countries the airspace is currently closed because of the Iranian attacks,” she said.
“This is deeply stressful for people because we're talking about a lot of people who are holidaymakers, who were transit passengers just passing through or people on business visits to the region and who we want to make sure can get safely home.”
The UK on Sunday granted permission for the US to use its airbases so that it can attack Iran and help defend its Gulf allies, and British citizens, from Iran, Ms Cooper said. She told BBC Radio 4 it was the right thing to do as “ballistic missiles were pointed at hotels in Dubai”.
During the morning media round, she told the BBC that due to the “reckless” way that the Iranian regime had responded to the US strikes – hitting hotels and coming close to UK airbases – the UK now had to act to help defend a region where there are so many British citizens and interests.
The Foreign Secretary said the UK had received requests from Gulf countries for assistance.
“This is about collective self-defence in the face of Iran’s reckless attacks on countries with so many British citizens and countries not involved in targeting Iran.”
“We continue to believe that we want to seek a negotiated solution, a diplomatic process. We made a deliberate decision not to be involved in the US strikes that took place over the weekend,” she told Sky News
Ms Cooper said it was involved in a “specific limited agreement” with the US to protect the Gulf countries. “Many of those Gulf countries were not involved in any of the strikes on Iran,” she added.
