British Army chief’s call to ‘mobilise the nation’ in the event of war ‘should be listened to’, Tobias Ellwood says
A warning from the head of the British Army that the UK would not be prepared in the event of a war should be “listened to carefully”, a former defence minister has said.
Tobias Ellwood told Sky News there was a “1939 feel to the world” and that Britain was not equipped to deal with “what is coming over the horizon”.
He was responding to a report in The Daily Telegraph, which said that later on Wednesday, General Sir Patrick Sanders was due to give a speech warning the British public would have to be called up to fight if the UK goes to war because the military is too small.
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Mr Ellwood, who has served alongside General Sir Patrick, said he was “one of the most cerebral thinkers that we’ve got” and a “strategist”.
“We need to listen and listen carefully, we’ve been too complacent,” Mr Ellwood said.
“What’s coming over the horizon should shock us. It should worry us and we are not prepared.”
The MP for Bournemouth East said that following decades of post-Cold War peace there was a growing sense authoritarian states could “exploit our timidity, perhaps our reluctance to really put fires out” – pointing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“So Patrick Sanders is saying prepare for what’s coming over the horizon – there is a 1939 feel to the world right now,” he said. “These authoritarian states are rearming.
“There’s a risk averseness about the West in wanting to deal with that and our global institutions such as the United Nations aren’t able to hold these errant nations to account.”
According to The Daily Telegraph, General Sir Patrick would not support conscription but wants the government to “mobilise the nation” in the event of war with Russia.
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British Army numbers to be ‘73,000’
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He has previously been outspoken about the need to rebuild the UK’s warfighting capability in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine, saying Britain’s combat power has been hollowed out by consecutive governments since the end of the Cold War.
The Ministry of Defence declined to comment, but earlier this week, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps denied the size of the army was “shrinking” and said under the Conservatives, it would not dip below the current level of around 73,000.
However, Mr Ellwood said he agreed with General Sir Patrick that the army is “overstretched”, in part because of issues to do with pay and accommodation.
He said the army, as well as the navy, is about “half the size of what it should be” while the RAF is lacking the equipment it needs.
“In the Cold War, we had 36 fast jet squadrons, we’re down to about six today. And that’s just an illustration of just how small our armed forces are,” he said.
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Will defence spending hit 2.5%?
The senior MP said the defence budget needed to be upped from its current level of 2% of GDP to at least 3%.
The government’s target is 2.5%, but Mr Shapps told Sky News on Sunday that “we’re not there yet”.
Mr Ellwood said that during the Cold War, defence spending “was about 4%”.
He added: “Our world is no longer at peace. We’re moving to a world at war. Britain absolutely has a role to play, but we need to upgrade our defence posture.”
Politics
‘Shy’ Reform voters in Labour areas led to Farage’s party winning by-election, Harriet Harman says
“Shy” Reform voters in Labour areas led to Nigel Farage’s party winning the Runcorn by-election by just six votes, Labour peer Harriet Harman said.
The Runcorn and Helsby seat, created in 2024, went to Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin who defeated Labour candidate Karen Shore by six votes.
Reform overturned a 34.8% majority gained by former Labour MP Mike Amesbury last year before he stood down earlier this year after he punched a constituent on a night out.
It is the closest by-election result since records began in 1945.
Read more: Badenoch apologises to Tory councillors
Labour peer and former minister Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast: “If we’d have known it was so close, I, myself, would have gone on extra time there and got those six votes.
“So, there’s a real level of frustration and I’m sure there’ll be a post-mortem, but I think there’s a lot of talk about shy Reform voters in Labour areas.”
In the local elections, running at the same time, the Conservatives lost control of all 18 councils it was contesting, with Reform taking eight of those.
The party also won two of the six mayoral contests – Reform’s first two mayors.
Harriet Harman on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast
Baroness Harman said Labour now has “got to get on with delivering on the health service” and pointed out the minimum wage increase and breakfast clubs are only just being rolled out.
But she said the government also needs “more of a story” instead of just telling people to “bear with us” while it fixes what the Conservatives did.
“It seems to be that Farage has got no delivery, as yet, and all the story, whereas the government is really getting on with delivery, but it hasn’t got a big enough story about what that fits,” she said.
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An installation represents a bus stop during Reform UK’s local elections campaign launch in Birmingham. Pic: Reuters
She added that “Blue Labour” MPs – a socially Conservative wing of the Labour Party – “will be emboldened to press for further action” on issues like immigration, which they want to see a tougher stance on.
“There’s been grumbling about the big salience of the concerns of the winter fuel payment, but I don’t see there being any change on that,” she said.
Baroness Harman said she does not think the by-election and local election results were “utterly predictable” and will not lead to any splits or instability within the party.
Kemi Badenoch has apologised to Tory councillors who lost their seats after Reform made massive gains at the Conservatives’ expense in Thursday’s local elections.
The Conservative leader said she knew it was “disappointing” and that she was “sincerely sorry”, but added: “We are going to win those seats back – that is my job now.”
The Tories lost overall control of all 18 councils they had been in charge of that were up for election. There were 23 councils in the race in total.
Politics latest: Sky News analysis shows Reform surge in estimated national vote
A particularly bad loss was Buckinghamshire, which has been under Tory control since 1973 when local government was reorganised. The Conservatives lost overall control by just one seat after losing 29 seats.
Reform, which has never run in local elections before, gained eight councils from the Tories, one that had no overall control previously and one from Labour – the only Labour council up for grabs in this election.
Nigel Farage with the new Runcorn and Helsby MP Sarah Pochin. Pic: Reuters
The Lib Dems won Shropshire from the Tories, as well as Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire – both of which had no overall control before.
The Conservatives had one win, with Paul Bristow being voted in as Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayor, previously held by Labour.
Reform’s first major win of the election was the Runcorn and Helsby by-election where Labour lost to Reform by six votes. It was triggered by ex-Labour MP Mike Amesbury resigning after his conviction for punching a constituent.
Sir Keir Starmer said he “gets” why his party suffered defeat there and the results show “we must deliver that change ever more quickly, we must go even further”.
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Tories suffer heavy defeats
Addressing the Conservatives’ abysmal results, Ms Badenoch said: “Other parties may be winning now, but we are going to show that we can deliver and that we are on course and recovering.
“But they [the public] are still not yet ready to trust us,” she added.
“We have a big job to do to rebuild trust with the public.
“That’s the job that the Conservative Party has given me, and I’m going to make sure that we get ourselves back to the place where we are seen as being a credible alternative to Labour.”
Read more:
Reform’s political earthquake is now shaking our political system
Reform wins two new mayoral contests
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Farage: ‘This is Reform-quake’
Ms Badenoch said Labour’s election results showed Sir Keir Starmer “is on course to be a one-term prime minister”.
However, when asked if she would still be leader at the next general election, Ms Badenoch dodged the question and said: “I’m not playing all these questions that the media loves to ask about my future.
“This is not about me.”
She insisted she was the right person to lead the Conservatives, as she was chosen by the party’s members.
“I told them it wouldn’t be easy, I told them it would require a renewal and rebuilding of our party,” she said.
“That doesn’t happen in six months. I’m trying to do something that no one has ever done before, which is take their party from such a historic defeat back into government in one term.”
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