Totally agree. And the French Mirage platform too. The Murage already has a carrier version, and it should not take much to change it from the French Catapult version to our ski jump carriers.
Just a couple of years back the UK had a deal with Italy and Japan to do a new fighter, but that was scrapped. Daft decision.
Re the Gripen. From memory, Canada, Thailand and Spain were deciding between F35 and Saab. The Thais went Saab, Canada F35, Spain Saab. From my poor memory so probably mixed up, but the thing is, more countries buying Grippen means more money for Saab to make it even better.
Also worth noting that buying F35 involves meeting a whole slew of US demands on other things too. No Chinese telephone network kit ANYWHERE for example. I do not totally disagree with no Chinese made kit Tho, but there are loads of others I can't remember.
A quick look, I won't post links "
"The reason Turkey was kicked out of the program was that it purchased Russian-made S-400 SAMs. The US fears the S-400 will gather information on the jet for Russia. "
"According to Janes reporting in 2020, the US warned the UK that if it didn’t ban the Huawei 5G networks, it would not deploy its F-35s to the nation. The UK has since banned Huawei’s 5G networks, with the last technology to be removed by 2027."
Odd thing with the UK, is that we make about 15% of EVERY F35, yet we technically do not fully control those we buy.