Britain needed depth beyond Singapore

Would Britain have been better off building major bases at Cape Town, Trincomalee, and Darwin as well as Singapore?

Yes. They would provide strategic depth and wider sea control, but the network required funding Britain already struggled to provide for Singapore alone.

Britain would be better placed with several major bases rather than concentrating Far Eastern investment at Singapore. Trincomalee, not inland Delhi, was the useful Indian naval position, while Darwin could support operations around northern Australia. A Singapore-scale Cape Town would strengthen the South Atlantic and might even change whether a raider such as Admiral Graf Spee risked entering the Indian Ocean. These bases would also give a retreating fleet somewhere prepared to receive and repair it after Singapore fell. The obstacle was money: London struggled to fund Singapore fully, so a wider network required higher taxes, more debt, or greater imperial contributions.