Britain looks increasingly unable to defend against an attack, with the Government freezing military projects, cancelling spending and selling off hardware.
Murmurings from Whitehall and defence industries suggest that all bets are off after the boosterism and sales talk of last year. The UK now appears to be heading for a big defence sell-out, with programmes and exercise plans abandoned.
A whopping £28bn black hole has appeared in the accounts – some are muttering about the need for another round of defence cuts.
Last year, the Starmer Government embarked on a big sell of its plans to boost British defence capabilities, laid out in a glossy brochure, the Strategic Defence Review. Ahead of his first meeting with Donald Trump last February, the Prime Minister pledged that defence expenditure would rise to 2.5 per cent of GDP in 2027. In June, he promised this would reach an eyewatering 5 per cent of GDP by 2035. That seems a very distant prospect now.
Ambassadors, attachés, and visiting officers discreetly but volubly talk to journalists and analysts of their bewilderment and frustration at the Government’s inertia in honouring its defence commitments. Relations with close allies, especially those in western Europe, are steadily souring.
A huge proportion of defence spending goes to the nuclear programme, and there are fears, especially in the Army, that this has led to underinvestment in artificial intelligence, digitalisation of the battlefield, and autonomous weapons – of the kind already seeing action in Ukraine.
More immediate concern focuses on the treaty governing the ambitious Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) to develop a sixth-generation stealth fighter, the Tempest, for the RAF. Officials connected to the project from Italy, and other European allies, revealed to The i Paper their worry at Starmer’s refusal to sign up to the next stage of the plan, to which the UK is bound by treaty.
A Typhoon fighter jet takes to the skies at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. Japan, the UK and Italy have said they will jointly develop a next-generation fighter jet called Tempest (Photo: Joe Giddens/Pool/AFP)In the past three weeks, more than a dozen defence experts and diplomats from partners such as Italy, and close allies like Sweden and other Nordic partners in the Joint Expeditionary Force, told me of their concern at Britain’s current defence posture, on the GCAP project in particular. It has been a common theme at three forums and conferences I have attended in London and Italy in the past fortnight.
Leonardo, the Italian aerospace company that is central to the next stages of GCAP, is alarmed at growing suggestions from Whitehall and its business partners that the UK wants to cut funding for the project. There are concerns Britain could now be reduced to a junior role as Italy and Japan seek new partners.
The firm fears a £1bn plan for a new AW149 medium-lift utility helicopter is also facing delay or cancellation, it can now be revealed. If the deal is off, its helicopter factory in Yeovil, Somerset, is expected to close and Leonardo to reduce its UK footprint and eventually quit altogether, according to informed inside sources in Italy and the UK. When asked to comment for this article, the Ministry of Defence refused to confirm there would be an order for the helicopter.
“Government appears to be completely stuck,” a senior security civil servant confided recently in a private conversation. “It’s as if Government can’t decide, or doesn’t want to decide – I’ve never known anything like it.”
The Army’s Ajax armoured fighting vehicle pictured at Tankfest 2024 in Dorset (Photo: Finnbarr Webster/Getty)All three major armoured vehicle programmes are also stalled – the Boxer armoured troop carrier, the Ajax light tank, and the Challenger 3 main battle tank. Ajax is pending further safety reports – and after what I have assessed adds up to a £3.5bn spend, it is still far from ready for operations.
Full production of the Challenger 3 has been delayed, not least because it is now a monster of nearly 80 tonnes, too heavy for most roads and bridges in this country and Europe.
The RAF and Navy have issues and delays, too. Programmes such as the Wedgetail airborne early-warning plane – already ditched by the US Air Force – are well behind schedule. The Navy is down to only seven working destroyers and frigates. Of the first four new City Class Type 26 frigates, two are now being earmarked for transfer to Norway.
Responding to this article, the MoD claimed that the £10bn deal for Norway to order up to five Type 26 frigates – also known as the Global Combat Ship – was part of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR). Within hours of supplying this comment, Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard gave a written statement to Parliament that “working with our Norwegian Partners” the UK “was assessing options for offering Type 26 build slots currently allocated to the Royal Navy to the Royal Norwegian Navy” and said the programme for eight British and Norwegian Type 26 frigates would go ahead.
He seemed unaware that the Norwegian defence ministry was briefing media in Oslo that it was considering cutting the order for the British ships from five to three – because of pressures in their own defence investment plan, which is on the point of publication – unlike its British counterpart.
A CGI image of a Type 26 Global Combat Ship with a Norwegian flag (Photo: MoD)The Prime Minister is adamant that the Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius must go ahead. The Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has stated that the treaty “is vital for UK defence”. Some £35bn is pledged from the MoD budget for the 99-year lease of the Diego Garcia base in Chagos – a cost of up to £100m a year.
There are several striking oddities about the deal. Most notable is Cooper and Starmer’s insistence that it is vital to UK defence, while Chancellor Rachel Reeves refuses to fund an integrated air defence system against missiles and drones for the UK’s eastern seaboard, costed at around £10bn to build and make operational. England’s east coast is more vulnerable to overt and covert attack than during the 2012 London Olympics.
There are fewer defences available than then, and the MoD plans to find just £1bn for the air defence of Britain, it can be revealed. A similar scheme which the UK participated in, for Qatar – a tiny land space compared with Britain’s east coast – cost around $15bn.
Opposition Leader Kemi Badenoch has now called for a full public inquiry into the Chagos treaty, its origins, its architects and how and why they became involved. In particular she has asked for investigations into the role and conduct of Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s National Security Adviser.
Britain’s allies are moving quickly to fulfil their pledges to Nato and the defence of Europe – as the US becomes less interested in being the alliance’s guarantor. Poland will soon field six divisions, and Germany will become the lead military power of Europe in terms of credible conventional deterrence – a commodity in which allies find the UK singularly lacking.
German allies at the Nato exercise in northern Europe have been openly asking why Britain has contributed so little in terms of equipment – two helicopters – and personnel.
Full production of the Challenger 3 has been delayed, not least because it is now a monster of nearly 80 tonnes, too heavy for most roads and bridges in the UK and Europe (Photo: Jack Eckersley/MoD)The Defence Investment Plan (DIP) an integral part of the SDR, lays down what money will be available, and when, for various programmes. Since missing its delivery date of last September, the DIP has gone walkabout through the corridors of Whitehall. A version, according to insider sources, was served up last December, only to be slapped down as unaffordable by Reeves. The next DIP publication date is slated for March – but some malicious wags in SW1 imply that it may not be published at all.
George Robertson, the former defence secretary and Nato secretary general, was the lead author of last year’s SDR. “The government signed up to all 62 recommendations as policy,” he told a conference last week – but, he added, they seem unwilling to implement and fund it.
A Boxer armoured personnel carrier, jointly produced by KNDS Deutschland and Rheinmetall, on display at the Security Equipment International in London on September (Photo: John Keeble/Getty)The SDR is now beginning to look like a Potemkin Village, all façade and no substance, according to critics. Rowing back on the defence review and the pledges could be Starmer’s ultimate U-turn.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson told The i Paper: “The externally led Strategic Defence Review was a first of its kind for UK defence and sets a vision to make Britain secure at home and strong abroad. As the reviewers, including Lord Robertson said, it is ‘a truly transformational and genuinely strategic review… designed to bolster deterrence by rebuilding our warfighting readiness’.
Your next read
square WORLD Big ReadIs Trump well enough to lead? The experts weigh in
square WORLD InterviewHow a Russia-Europe war would unfold – and it could happen within years
square SPAINThe favourite Spanish holiday beaches that are slowly disappearing
square USA AnalysisTrump’s latest U-turn only masks his ghastly long-term plan
“We have made significant progress in delivering the SDR, including a £9bn Defence Housing Strategy, putting the UK at the forefront of cyber operations through the new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command, announcing the military ‘gap years’ to reconnect the public with those who serve, and developing Atlantic Bastion, harnessing investment and new technologies to deliver the hybrid Navy of the future.
“This is backed by the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War – reaching 2.6 per cent of GDP by 2027, with an additional £5bn this financial year and £270bn across this Parliament.”
However, if the £270bn is across a five-year parliamentary period, and includes already earmarked MoD funding for Afghan security refugees, Northern Ireland Compensation, the Ukraine support fund at just under £3bn a year, and the Chagos Treaty – plus managing the acknowledged black hole in current funding – it will be spending less than the current £60bn a year on hardcore defence and equipment. This is Alice in Wonderland accounting.
Hence then, the article about the uk is abandoning helicopters tanks and its ability to defend itself was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The UK is abandoning helicopters, tanks … and its ability to defend itself )
Also on site :