Saw it, heard it, read the transcript, bought the T-shirt.
"He said that the cuts were made in other areas so that they COULD react autonomously if required."
Not for MAJOR ops. The autonomous capability will be VERY limited.
There will be times when the lack of a carrier would make even a minor/medium autonomous op a non-starter (though there has not been such an op since 1982!).
The lack of adequate SH, tankers, SEAD, recce would ALWAYS make autonomous ops a non starter, and would make us a less attractive ally in coalition ops.