The resignation of John Healey as Defence Secretary has torpedoed all credibility in Keir Starmer’s defence and security policy.
Only a year ago, Healey and Starmer launched a brand-new Strategic Defence Review. Starmer promised at least 2.5 per cent of GDP being spent on defence, in line with Nato’s demands – and this was to rise to 3 per cent by 2030.
Now, all bets are off. The much-needed Defence Investment Plan (DIP) to explain how the extra funding would be raised and spent was due last September. It had to be published now for the Nato Summit in Ankara early next month, which requires Britain to table a national defence plan to show what it would commit to the alliance.
Not doing so would be a breach of Article 3 of the Nato founding treaty, which holds that a member nation must be capable of defending itself.
In his resignation letter, Healey states that Starmer appeared to agree back in January about the need to invest more in defence, given the worsening security picture across the world, particularly in Ukraine and the Gulf. “Since then [January],” writes Healey, “you have been unable, and the Treasury have been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.”
Investment in defence is much needed. Ammunition stocks are dangerously low after the donation of material to Ukraine. New factories have been designed but so far production is negligible. All three services need urgent upgrades of equipment – to operate effectively in the era of cyberwarfare, drones and autonomous, robotic systems.
The Army embarked on a programme for new hybrid drone warfare – a mixture of current equipment and new drone and sensor systems. General Sir Roly Walker has costed the upgrade package at about £500 million, plus £25 million for “consumables” – fuel, logistics and the like. Similarly the Navy is trying to develop a new hybrid fleet – a mixture of manned ships, unmanned ships and submarines, and surface and underwater drones. Work has already started on this as part of the “Atlantic Bastion” concept enshrined last year’s Defence Review and agreed Nato plans. Now, further capital funding for the project is in doubt.
Rachel Reeves is believed to have agreed an uplift of about £11bn for defence over the next four years. The head of the British forces, Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton had written to Starmer ahead of Healey’s resignation to say the offered settlement was nowhere near enough.
The row over defence funding is hugely damaging to Britain’s relations with close Nato and other allies. A further aspect is the demand made by Reeves and the Treasury that they take control of spending, and by implication, policy in the flagship GCAP project to build a new generation aircraft manned and unmanned, and communications architecture along with Italy and Japan.
Reeves is understood to have the backing of Ed Miliband at Energy, Yvette Cooper at the Foreign Office, and Heidi Alexander at Transport in blocking any departmental cuts to boost defence funds. “She has caused chaos with endless delays, and caused real damage to the security of this country,” one Whitehall insider told me this week.
Many in the Labour movement, including the special advisers have been involved directly in the defence funding policy, will see this as a triumph for the “welfare before warfare” and “lawfare before warfare” lobbies.
For whoever succeeds Starmer now, this will be cold comfort. As Healey and the authors of the Defence Review warn, the threats to Britain’s security and welfare from Eastern Europe to the Gulf are growing.
Reeves and her supporters do not seem to heed that old chestnut: we may not want or choose war, but it has an unpleasant habit of choosing us.
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