Baroness Sayeeda Warsi: 'Britain Is Home — But Our Military Is Woefully Underprepared'

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi of Dewsbury returned from a five‑month journey last December convinced that Britain remains her home — but alarmed at how exposed it is. Travelling with her husband, Iftikhar Azam, she visited New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Qatar, sharing much of the trip online and describing the experience as a reset rather than a midlife detour.

Warsi pictured with her husband Iftikhar Azam in 2012 - Paul Grover/Shutterstock

"It wasn't a 'midlife gap year', it was a first gap year," she says, adopting a playful upper‑class inflection for a moment. "After university I had to get a job; I didn't have the privilege of travelling then. Now our children are married, so it felt like the right time." Despite briefly considering settling abroad, she concluded: "Home will always be Yorkshire."

When she was raised to the peerage by David Cameron in 2007, Warsi became the youngest member of the House of Lords - Eddie Mulholland

Raised to the peerage in 2007 by David Cameron, Warsi became the youngest member of the House of Lords and, three years later, the UK's first Muslim cabinet minister. In 2014 she resigned a senior foreign office role over what she described as the Government's "morally indefensible" stance on the Gaza conflict. A decade later she gave up the Conservative whip entirely, saying it reflected "how far right my party has moved."

'I think that within our lifetime we may see a war here, and we need to make sure that at that moment we are resilient and prepared' - Rii Schroer for The Telegraph

The Wargame And A Stark Warning

Warsi recently took part in The Wargame, a four‑part Sky series adapted from a podcast that stages a Cobra‑style emergency room responding to a simulated Russian escalation. The programme begins with the assassination of two RAF pilots and climaxes with a fictional Cabinet decision about possible Trident use. Warsi appears as Attorney General alongside a cast playing senior ministers.

Warsi pictured in 2006 after her unsuccessful 2005 parliamentary bid in Deswbury - Clare Kendall

"I think that within our lifetime we may see a war here, and we need to make sure that at that moment we are resilient and prepared."

She says the exercise made one thing painfully clear: the UK is underprepared. "We are underprepared in so many ways — funding, hardware, staff. This war will not just be fought by our military; it will require a whole‑of‑society response," she warns. The simulation also exposed brittle assumptions about allies: expected support from the US and NATO may not materialise as reliably as in the past.

In 2010, after Cameron elevated her to Minister without Portfolio - Heathcliff O'Malley

Patriotism, Politics And Personal Roots

Warsi speaks from personal as well as professional vantage points. She is the granddaughter of two men who served in the British Indian Army and the mother of a serving member of the Armed Forces. She praises servicemen and women as "the ultimate patriots" but stresses that political leaders who control the military must also act patriotically — interrogating evidence, remaining lawful and serving the national interest rather than ideology.

Her political journey has been unconventional. After legal training with the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office, she ran as a Conservative candidate in 2005 and lost, then entered the Lords in 2007. She has long juggled public scrutiny of her faith and private life with a wider political career, and says she no longer tolerates the routine intrusions she once faced: "Post‑50, I am much more inclined to say it's not my job to educate you."

Warsi left the Conservative whip concerned about the party's direction but remains in contact with friends across the political spectrum. She is writing a new book, The Patriot: A Love Letter to My Country, aimed at reclaiming patriotism from exclusionary nationalism and arguing that local life is often more cohesive than headlines suggest.

Conclusion

Reset by travel and sharpened by simulated crisis, Warsi's message is a mix of affection and alarm: she loves Britain and wants it to be prepared. "When we are at war, it will be love for our nation that gets us through," she says. The Wargame begins on Sky One on Monday, Sept 21 at 9pm.