Rishi Sunak warns of ‘growing threats’ as he announces tens of billions of pounds in extra defence funding
Rishi Sunak is to increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 as he warns European allies that the continent is at a “turning point” in the face of the growing threats from Russia, Iran and China.
Speaking alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the UK prime minister said he planned to steadily increase defence spending by the end of the decade, rising to 2.4% a year until 2027/28 – then hitting 2.5% by 2030/31.
Funding will rise from £64.6bn in 2024 to £78.2bn in 2028, and then jump to £87bn in 2030/31.
The government said the commitment amounted to an additional £75bn in funding over the next six years and would see the UK remain “by far the second largest defence spender in NATO after the US”.
Politics latest: PM gives news conference after defence spending pledge
Making the announcement on a visit to Poland, Mr Sunak said the additional funding represented the “biggest strengthening of our national defence in a generation to meet the challenge of an increasingly dangerous world”.
He revealed a further £10bn would be spent over the next decade on munitions production and modernisation of the armed forces, and that at least 5% of the defence budget would be committed to research and development.
The prime minister said: “An axis of autocratic states like Russia, Iran and China are increasingly working together to undermine democracies and reshape the world order.
“They are also investing heavily in their own militaries and in cyber capabilities and in low-cost technology, like the Shahed attack drones Iran fired towards Israel last weekend.”
He added that this posed a “direct threat to the lives and livelihoods of people in the UK, as well as across Europe and the wider world”, as he spoke of the need to take “further action now to deter these growing threats”.
Asked by Sky News whether the UK had entered a “pre-war era”, the prime minister said: “We have to recognise that the world… is a more dangerous place”.
But he said the threats from the likes of Russia were “nothing new” – they just came at a new “pace and intensity”, adding: “That’s why it’s important that we make this investment and we make this investment now”.
However, Mr Sunak said the UK was approaching them “from a position of strength and confidence”.
Pointing to Ukraine, he said recent gains by the Russians were equivalent to taking over Basildon and Eastbourne, adding: “The allies are united, defence spending is growing across Europe and Nato has two new members.
“If you take a step back, you know, Russia is not in any way succeeding.”
The prime minister added: “We have been making the right investments. Nato is strong. Our alliance is strong. People are doing the right thing. And as you know… Russia has not succeeded.
“But we can’t be complacent. And that’s why [we are making] the announcement today.”
Pic: Ben Birchall/PA
Today’s commitment comes after growing pressure on the prime minister to increase defence spending in the face of increasing threats from hostile states.
Last month, two serving ministers – Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Tom Tugendhat – publicly urged the government to invest at a “much greater pace”.
The House of Commons’ spending watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee, also warned the gap between the Ministry of Defence’s budget and the cost of the UK’s desired military capabilities had risen by £16.9bn – the largest deficit ever – despite a promised injection of more than £46bn over the next decade.
The increase in defence spending will play well to Mr Sunak’s base in the Conservative Party and comes fresh from his landmark Rwanda legislation being passed, with the prime minister emphatic that a regular rhythm of flights will be taking off from July.
Both announcements are part of a publicity blitz for the embattled leader as he looks to get on the front foot ahead of next week’s local elections, aware that a disastrous night could put him not just back on to his heels, but into free fall.
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But Labour said the Conservatives had “shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted on defence”.
Shadow defence minister John Healey said his party wanted to see “a fully funded plan to reach 2.5%, so would “examine the detail of the announcement closely.
However, he added: “The British public will judge ministers by what they do not what they say.
“Since 2010, the Conservatives have wasted more than £15bn mismanaging defence procurement, shrunk the army to its smallest size since Napoleon, missed their recruitment targets every year, and allowed morale to fall to record lows.
“Labour will conduct a strategic defence and security review in the first year in government to get to grips with the threats we face, the state of our armed forces, and the resources required.”
Politics
Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a “progressive win” rather than simply “protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer” over winter fuel.
Earlier this week, a number of MPs in the Red Wall – Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England – reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership’s response to the local elections had “fallen on deaf ears”.
They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so “isn’t weak, it takes us to a position of strength”.
Labour’s decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners.
But Baroness Harman said a better target for the group could be an overhaul of George Osborne’s two-child benefit cap.
The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron’s austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can’t make claims for any further children they have.
Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit.
Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target.
She said: “It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty.
“Let’s see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies.”
Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party’s “connection” to a core group of voters “died” with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
“We need to reset the government,” she told Electoral Dysfunction. “The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments.
“I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it.”
Pic: AP
A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-election and control of Doncaster Council to Reform UK.
Following the results, Sir Keir said “we must deliver that change even more quickly – we must go even further”.
Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters’ concerns.
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One of the MPs who was present at the meeting told Sky News there was “lots of anger at the government’s response to the results”.
“People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep,” they said.
“There is a lack of vision from this government.”
Another added: “Everyone was furious.”
Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week that one might be on the cards.
A man from the US state of Virginia will spend over three decades behind bars after being convicted of sending crypto to the terrorist organization commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Federal Judge David Novak sentenced Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa to 30 years and four months in prison on May 7 for sending over $185,000 to the Islamic State, the Department of Justice said on May 8.
Prosecutors said that from around October 2019 until October 2022, the 35-year-old Chhipa collected and sent money to female Islamic State members in Syria, which helped them escape prison camps and funded fighting.
The Justice Department said Chhipa would raise funds for the United Nations-designated terror organization through social media — receiving money online, or traveling hundreds of miles to accept donations in person.
He’d convert the money into crypto and send it to Turkey for it to be smuggled to Islamic State members across the border in Syria, prosecutors said.
A federal jury convicted Chhipa in December, finding him guilty on a charge of conspiracy to provide support to a terrorist organization and four charges of providing and attempting to provide support to a terrorist organization.
“This defendant directly financed ISIS in its efforts to commit vile terrorist atrocities against innocent citizens in America and abroad,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This severe sentence illustrates that if you fund terrorism, we will prosecute you and put you behind bars for decades.”
Chhipa tried to flee US during FBI probe
Prosecutors said that during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into Chhipa, he tried to flee the country to escape prosecution and tried to hide his tracks through a series of actions seemingly aimed at confusing authorities.
According to a motion for detention filed in August, FBI agents searched Chhipa’s house on Aug. 2, 2019, and that night Chhipa drove to a bank, withdrew $1,800 from an ATM, and then went to a Taco Bell, where he paid a stranger for a ride to a relative’s house. The relative then drove him to a grocery store.
Related: US Treasury sanctions Myanmar militia group for alleged crypto scams
Three days later, prosecutors said Chhipa “purchased a series of bus tickets using variations and/or misspelling of his name and recently created email accounts.”
He then travelled from Virginia to Mexico and onto Guatemala. He then bought tickets to fly from Guatemala to Panama, then onto Germany, and then to Egypt, but an Interpol Blue Notice was issued, and he was returned to the US.
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