Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Britain’s defence spending isn’t enough

A key part of Theresa May’s strategy for wooing Donald Trump was making it clear that Britain was pulling its weight with funding Nato, with the PM calling on other countries to match the two per cent of GDP that Britain spent on defence so ‘that the burden is more fairly shared’. The report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies that the UK had, in fact, missed this target was potentially explosive then – and it’s no surprise the MoD stepped in quickly to bat away the claims. But whether too much or too little, the amount of money spent on military matters is the talking point in many of the newspapers this morning.

The Sun says it’s clear that if ‘Global Britain’ is to ‘succeed’, the country must not step away from its military commitments. The ‘steady reduction in UK troop numbers’ is a worry, while claims made by former general Sir Richard Barrons that cost cutting had eaten away at our defence was another cause of concern. The paper also says that after Theresa May ‘berated’ other European leaders for failing to pull their weight, it’s obvious that Donald Trump ‘won’t take kindly to Britain’s contribution falling’. Amidst threats coming from several directions – Russia, IS, and North Korea – ‘now is not the time to weaken our defences,’ the paper concludes.

The Daily Telegraph backs up this call for Britain to commit more fully to spending on defence. The MoD said that the IISS think tank had calculated a shortfall because of a mistake in the way they had tallied up the figures. Yet for the Telegraph this is a ‘largely specious’ argument. ‘What matters,’ says the paper, is not quibbling about statistics but ensuring that Europe remains ‘adequately defended’ from outside threats.

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