It is hard to think of a recent prime minister whose first months in office have seen defence in the headlines more often than Sir Keir Starmer. Even John Major, coming to power in 1990 as a United States-led coalition prepared to eject Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait, was dealing with an expeditionary adventure which soon concluded.
Labour has come to power against the backdrop of a grindingly bloody and entrenched war in Ukraine and furious military activity in the Middle East. Starmer had also made choices: he had committed to an immediate strategic defence review. His party’s manifesto had also tried evasively to counter the Conservatives’ pledge of more money for the military by saying that it ‘will set out the path to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence’.
If defence spending does not increase significantly, the armed forces will continue to lose their capabilities
Bland aspirational slogans are now meeting brutal reality head on. Last month, rumours emerged that the target of 2.5 per cent would not be met this decade because of financial pressures elsewhere in Whitehall. Failing to raise spending would be catastrophic for the armed forces and would confirm that the United Kingdom simply could not fulfil the military commitments it had made.
This remains true. If anything, the situation is now worse. The new US secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, told a summit in Brussels on Wednesday that America would no longer ‘tolerate an imbalanced relationship’ and that therefore European countries would have to spend more on defence. His message was unambiguous:
Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of Nato. Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine.
Starmer has made extravagant promises of UK leadership on Ukraine, promising £3 billion in assistance for ‘as long as it takes’ and signing a 100-year partnership with Kyiv. Yet the mood music emanating from Whitehall is unchanged: there will be no immediate increase in spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP – which in any event would only make good current shortfalls and deficiencies. The Ministry of Defence may even see a small real-terms fall in its budget.
The Prime Minister is reportedly meeting with the heads of the armed forces to try to resolve a serious disagreement emerging from the closing stages of the strategic defence review. In short, the military wants defence spending to rise to 2.65 per cent of GDP, while the Treasury is insistent that the proportion should remain at 2.3 per cent: in real terms, this gap is around £10 billion a year. Starmer’s own inclination is to cling tightly to his promise of setting out a ‘pathway’ to 2.5 per cent, which, until he provides a schedule, is meaningless.
This has the air of a Potemkin argument. The unambiguous message delivered by Hegseth, combined with President Trump’s insistence that European countries should be spending 5 per cent of their GDP on defence – considerably more than the United States – and the substantial increases made or planned by Poland and the Baltic countries, mean that even the high bid of 2.65 per cent is barely adequate.
The facts are inescapable. An increase to 2.5 or 2.65 per cent would more or less allow the armed forces to make good their current capability gaps and get our diminished services to something near readiness. But the Ministry of Defence has deluded itself for so long that it would only mean that our existing commitments could now be fulfilled, nothing more. The Treasury’s lowball represents an unwillingness to face reality and should not even be entertained.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this situation. As matters stand, most of the Royal Navy’s attack submarines are unable to undertake operations; the Royal Marines are reliant on one landing ship with inadequate command and control capabilities; and the Army’s principal combat formation, 3rd (UK) Division, would struggle to generate even a brigade-strength deployment. The new Ajax armoured fighting vehicle will not reach full operational capability until 2028, eight years behind schedule, with its wheeled Boxer counterpart reaching that milestone in 2032.
The Prime Minister cannot prevaricate on this. If defence spending does not increase significantly, the armed forces will continue to lose their capabilities, and maintenance of equipment will become even slower and more disruptive. President Trump will conclude, quite reasonably, that the UK is not interested in or capable of maintaining a global role; our Nato allies will cease to regard us as a reliable ally if we cannot deliver the military force we promise.
A government spokesman spoke on the issue in that disjointed, robotic prose so characteristic of the Starmer administration:
The strategic defence review is being conducted at pace to determine the roles, capabilities and reforms required by UK defence to meet the challenges, threats and opportunities of the 21st century.
Let us be absolutely clear: that cannot be done with the level of spending the Treasury is proposing. Something will have to give.
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