Kemi Badenoch has warned that Britain is "at war" and accused Labour of ignoring the threat after a wave of cyber-attacks. The Conservative leader said hostile states were running a shadow campaign of "hybrid warfare" against the West, hitting businesses, power supplies and supermarket freezers.
Speaking at a defence rally aboard HMS Wellington in London, she called on the Government to recognise the danger and said families who think it has nothing to do with them are badly mistaken.
Cyber attacks on industry and infrastructure
Mrs Badenoch said: "Warfare is changing, in so many different ways - we are at war, now. Hybrid warfare, unconventional warfare."
Referring to a hack last year that targeted Jaguar Land Rover, she said the firm's operations and supply chains had been "completely crippled". That attack, she claimed, was linked to Moscow. Another attack saw a British power plant shut down by hackers connected to Iran.
She added: "This week we have heard about North Korean hackers stealing billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency to avoid sanctions and fund their army. Just yesterday, we heard about European supermarkets being shut down because their freezers and refrigeration systems had been hacked. That's our food supplies that we're talking about."
Stores across Europe were forced to throw out spoiled food after hackers raised fridge temperatures to 80 degrees this week.
Calls for serious preparation
Mrs Badenoch also warned that Russian spy ships were operating in the English Channel and monitoring Nato exercises, adding: "Unconventional warfare is here now, we need to start getting ready. We need to get serious."
Speaking to the Daily Express, she said: "If people think that unconventional warfare has nothing to do with them, it has everything to do with them. The Jaguar Land Rover cyber attack cost our economy £2billion pounds."
She added: "If the supermarkets get shut down for a day or two, we're all going to be in trouble. We need to stop being complacent. This is real."
Criticism of Government defence spending
The Tory leader accused ministers of having their "heads in the sand like ostriches". She turned her fire on Chancellor John Healey, who quit as Defence Secretary over funding, only to delay a decision on hitting 3% of GDP on defence in last week's Budget.
She said: "He resigned over that and yet they are still not funding defence to three percent of GDP. They have a plan to make a plan to get the plan. This is not serious."
Mrs Badenoch also warned that "stockpiling three days of tinned food is not what's going to save us if there is a drone attack or a nuclear missile attack". Standing aboard the 1934 warship, she praised the Royal Navy's role in defeating fascism and ending the slave trade.
Labour MPs hit back, with defence minister Luke Pollard saying: "If the Conservatives care so much about defence, why did they cut our army to its smallest size since the Napoleonic Wars and leave our armed forces, in the words of their own Defence Secretary, 'hollowed out and underfunded'?"
