To the uninitiated (me) this seems rather a desperate measure.
It had occurred to me before that between Lightning becoming obsolete and Typhoon becoming available - a multi-decade period at least some of which was at the height of the cold war - the RAF simply did not have any fighters (differentiating carefully from interceptors.)
What would actually have happened if a bunch of MiG-29-escorted bombers had risen into view over the north sea in about 1989? Presumably nothing nice.