Mers-el-Kébir as a grim fleet-denial decision

How should the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir be viewed?

As an ugly fleet-denial decision: Britain feared the strategic consequences of French warships becoming available to Germany.

Mers-el-Kébir remains humanly and politically ugly. Britain could not accept the chance that the French fleet might become useful to Germany after France made peace, although Britain did not want to sink it. Continuing the war alone, Britain treated fleet denial as a strategic necessity. Alternatives such as removal to the Caribbean might have avoided the bombardment if French command had accepted one of them. Admiral Darlan's equivocation shaped the disastrous outcome without making the British decision morally clean.