UK defence spending to rise to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – as Starmer hits out at ‘tyrant’ Putin
Defence spending in the UK will increase to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 while the foreign aid budget will be cut, Sir Keir Starmer has said ahead of a meeting with Donald Trump.
Spending would be raised from the current 2.3%, with £13.4bn more on defence each year after 2027, the prime announced in an unexpected statement in parliament.
Sir Keir said he wants defence spending to increase to 3% of GDP in the next parliament, but that would rely on Labour winning the next general election, set for 2029.
Politics latest: PM fast-tracks defence spending boost by cutting foreign aid
The number is much lower than the US president has demanded NATO members spend on defence, with Mr Trump saying they should all be spending 5% – an amount last seen during the Cold War.
Sir Keir also announced the government would cut back on foreign aid to fund the increase, reducing current spending from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3%.
Moments before the announcement, the Foreign Office said it was pausing some aid to Rwanda due to its role in the conflict in neighbouring Congo.
British Army soldiers from the 12th Armoured Brigade Combat Team during NATO exercises in May last year. Pic: Reuters
Foreign secretary David Lammy just two weeks ago criticised Mr Trump’s decision to freeze USAID, saying development remains a “very important soft power tool” and is worried without it, he “would be very worried China and others step into that gap”.
Sir Keir said the reduction in foreign aid is “not a renouncement I’m happy to make”, as charities said the cuts would mean more people in the poorest parts of the world would die.
He reiterated the government’s commitment to NATO, which he described as the “bedrock of our security”, and criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “tyrants only respond to strength”.
Addressing his upcoming visit to the White House to meet Mr Trump, the prime minister said he wants the UK’s relationship with the US to go from “strength to strength”.
Read more:
Healey announces new defence spending leaders
Badenoch says US acting in national interest – UK must also
You won’t see more tanks – the money is likely to go on cyber warfare
Our defence budget should hit £67.6bn by 2025/26 then another £13.4bn onto that – that takes you to just over £80bn.
My guess is it won’t be spent on the heavy metal, it won’t be lots more tanks, not lots more aircraft or ships.
A lot of it will go, I think, into personnel which are the key elements and the thing we’ve seen degraded and degraded.
So, a lot of the money, I think, will go into transformational warfare, into cyber, into computing, into quantum computing, into being able to create what’s called a kill chain and a kill net, whereby you can see a threat, deal with it immediately, understand what it is immediately, and bring in exactly the right weapon to do something about it.
Even the United States, which is the most sophisticated in the world, you know, is constantly chasing that sort of, Philosopher’s Stone, of the kill.
The Russians aren’t very good at it at all. The Chinese, we don’t know how good they are.
We’re not really certain. But we’ve got to get much, much better at doing that.
So, I suspect a lot of this money will go on things that you won’t see immediately.
But I’m pretty sure also that this sort of money is fundamental to the sort of transformations which I suspect the defence review is going to talk about.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch welcomed the defence spending increase and said she had written to him over the weekend to suggest how he could redirect money from the overseas development budget.
“This is absolutely right,” she told the Commons.
“And I look forward to him taking up my other suggestion of looking at what we can do on welfare.”
She urged him to not increase taxes further or to borrow more to fund the rise, but to ensure the economy grows to support it.
Former Conservative defence secretary Ben Wallace said an extra 0.2% was “a staggering desertion of leadership”.
“Tone deaf to dangers of the world and demands of the United States,” he wrote on X.
“Such a weak commitment to our security and nation puts us all at risk.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘Is US a threat to UK interests?’ Sky asks Badenoch
Labour MP Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee, said cutting the foreign aid budget is “deeply shortsighted and doesn’t make anyone safer”.
“The deep irony is that development money can prevent wars and is used to patch up the consequences of them, cutting this support is counterproductive and I urge the government to rethink,” she wrote on X.
Charities condemned the cut, with ActionAid saying cutting the aid budget to fund the military “only adds insult to injury” and “flies in the face of UN charters”, adding it was a “political choice with devastating consequences”.
Christine Allen, CEO of CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development), said the cut means “in some of the most vulnerable places on earth, more people will die and many more will lose their livelihoods”.
She said the cut, coming just after the US froze its aid programme, “is another lifeline being pulled away from those in desperate need”.
Labour promised in their manifesto to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from the current 2.3%, however, ministers had previously refused to set out a timeline.
They had insisted a “path” to get to 2.5% would be set out after a defence spending review is published this spring.
This is the moment the government finally woke up to the enormity of the threat faced by the UK and the inability of its hollowed-out armed forces to cope.
But make no mistake, today’s decision to increase military spending is not just about increasing the number of troops, warships and fighter jets or even ensuring they can use the latest drones, satellites or artificial intelligence breakthroughs.
This is an emergency that requires the entire nation to take responsibility for – or at least an interest in – the defence of the nation and the importance of being able to deter threats.
Politics latest: PM makes defence commitment
Sir Keir Starmer signalled this fundamental shift in priorities when he told parliament: “We must change our national security posture because a generational challenge requires a generational response that will demand some extremely difficult and painful choices.”
He continued: “And through those choices, as hard as they are, we must also seek unity. A whole society effort that will reach into the lives, the industries, and the homes of the British people.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Starmer announces defence spending hike
Such a proposal is not something new.
The UK has a long history of being prepared for war.
The entirety of the Cold War era was framed around ensuring the UK had enough troops and reservists to fight a sustained conflict, supported by a vast industrial base to produce weapons and a society that was intrinsically resilient, with the ability to sustain itself with emergency food rations, power supplies and an understanding of the need to be prepared to respond in an emergency.
Back then, the threat was war – maybe even nuclear annihilation – with the Soviet Union.
Today the threat is just as stark but also far more complex.
Russia is the immediate danger. But China poses a long-term challenge, while Iran and North Korea are also menacing adversaries.
Most fundamentally though is the change in the UK’s ability to rely squarely on its strongest ally, the United States.
Donald Trump, with his resentment of shouldering the responsibility for European security, has made clear the rest of the transatlantic NATO alliance must take much more of the share of defending themselves.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘The world is becoming more dangerous’
He has also signalled that he may not even be willing to deploy America’s powerful military to defend every single member state – singling out those who pay far too little on their defences.
He has a point when it comes to Europe freeloading on the might of the United States for too long.
But the suggestion that European allies can no longer automatically rely on their American partner to come to their aid is enough to call into question the value of Article 5 of the NATO Alliance, which states an attack on one is an attack on all.
When it comes to deterring foes, there must be no such uncertainty between friends.
Read more from Sky News:
Why Trump wants Ukraine’s minerals
Putin hints at potential deals with US
Sanctions have changed European imports
File pic: PA
It is why countries across Europe are being urged by the new head of NATO to rapidly ramp up defence spending and adopt what NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has called a “war mindset”.
The UK, who along with France are the only two NATO powers in Europe to possess nuclear weapons, has a bigger responsibility than most to heed that call.
Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 was not a sufficient enough alarm bell.
Eve Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022 failed to shake the UK and most of the rest of Europe from their slumber.
Instead, it seems the return of Donald Trump to the White House, with all the unpredictability that he brings, is the final shock that has stunned the UK into action.
Of course, defence insiders know that increasing spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 is not soon enough.
But this – coupled with Sir Keir’s language about the need for a “generational response” – is a landmark moment.
The beginning of the correction of a strategic mistake made by Labour and Conservative governments over years to take a “holiday from history” and fail to find credible, capable armed forces and ensure society understands the importance of defence and the ability to deter.
A 37-year-old man has pleaded guilty to stalking Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas over the course of six years.
Kyle Shaw admitted stalking the 64-year-old dancer and TV star between 31 August 2017 and 29 November 2023.
According to the charge, he caused Ballas “serious alarm or distress, which had a substantial adverse effect on her usual day-to-day activities”.
Shaw at court earlier this month. Pic: PA
The court heard he made continued attempts to contact Ballas, including posting an image of her house on social media.
He also tried to contact family, friends and colleagues, monitored her online and TV presence and made arrangements to go to her book tour.
Ballas was so concerned, the court was told, that she increased her security measures, moved her mother to a different address and altered social and work arrangements.
Shaw, from Whetstone Lane in Birkenhead, was bailed at Liverpool Crown Court ahead of sentencing on 1 April.
He also admitted possessing cannabis.
Read more from Sky News:
BBC apologises over Westwood
Roberta Flack dies
Judge Gary Woodhall told him it was very likely he would get “an immediate custodial sentence”.
Ballas, originally from Wallasey, has been head judge on Strictly since 2017, when she replaced Len Goodman.
Known as the ‘Queen of Latin’, she retired from competition in 1996 after winning numerous titles and went on to become a dance coach and international judge.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports11 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway