deploy and do what exactly? Get involved and potentially sacrifice a few UK soldiers to stroke Trumps ego? Sit around and look pretty? Having a carrier there doesn't magically make problems go away.
Quite. It will in fact make a lot of problems for you if it gets attacked as then you need to decide if you've just had war declared on you and have to decide what to do about that.
Escorting shipping through the Straight isn't like helping an old lady across the road, it's doing it at a red crossing light while pointing an AK47 through the windscreen of the cars with your finger on the trigger daring them to test your resolve.
Cheap drones are only effective against relatively soft targets. Weak penetration and small warheads limit their utility.
Many countries already have long-range drones designed to attack ships i.e. anti-ship missiles. They cost $1-2M a piece. It would still require a minimum of many direct hits to sink a modern aircraft carrier, as commonly demonstrated for SINKEX.
A drone payload can only sink a small ship, there is no way a single drone can sink a carrier. And the amount of drones Iraq can launch today isn't enough to get through a carriers defenses.
Russia-Ukraine war is different since there are many more drones and neither side has air superiority. Also most of those kills were done by missiles or sea drones, not the shahed drones Iran has that costs 20k.
Escorting shipping through the Straight isn't like helping an old lady across the road, it's doing it at a red crossing light while pointing an AK47 through the windscreen of the cars with your finger on the trigger daring them to test your resolve.