British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has authorised the Royal Air Force to provide air-to-air refuelling support to Saudi jets, in a time-limited military deployment aimed at helping the kingdom defend itself against escalating attacks by Yemen's Houthi movement. Burnham announced the decision while flying to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday, describing the mission as strictly defensive in nature. A single RAF Voyager tanker aircraft will refuel Saudi planes engaged in defensive operations against Houthi drones and missiles, but will not support offensive strikes against Houthi positions.

The announcement comes after the Houthis — an Iran-backed armed movement that controls much of northern Yemen — sharply intensified their campaign against Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. A missile targeting Riyadh was intercepted on Saturday, and Houthi forces have seized the port city of Mocha and key Red Sea islands, giving them greater ability to monitor shipping through the Bab al-Mandab strait. That narrow waterway, located between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, is one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints, through which roughly 12 percent of global trade normally passes. Saudi Arabia has used the strait as an alternative route for oil exports amid separate disruption to the Strait of Hormuz, a passage at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

Burnham framed the deployment in explicit economic terms, saying the UK needed to keep vital oil supply routes open to ease inflationary pressure at home. Turmoil in the Middle East has pushed up global energy prices and increased UK government borrowing costs to multi-year highs, compounding difficulties ahead of the new government's first budget.