Starmer the Disarmer?

 

The Retreat from Strategy (London: Hurst) Published September 2024

“We live in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won’t be offended”.

NOT Fyodor Dostoevsky

August 16^th. Oh dear, it seems Britain has been foisted with yet another government that said one thing to get elected and is doing very different things in power.  Pat McFadden, a key Labour figure even went as far as telling the British people Labour would always be honest.  Really, Pat? In a week that the war in Eastern Europe took a new and dangerous turn as Ukraine invaded Russia the new British Government leaked that the critical funding for defence science, technology, and research will be slashed by 20% and millions of defence critical pounds. 

I had hoped that Prime Minister Starmer would do the right thing by that ultimate public service, defence, by upholding the Tory commitment to spend at least 2.5% GDP by 2030.  At the NATO Washington Summit in June Starmer talked about "The generational threat of Russia… aided by the likes of North Korea and Iran. Conflicts rage across the Middle East and North Africa. The challenge of China. Terrorism."  His new Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey, went further, “It is right. Threats are growing across the world but here in Europe we have war for the first time for decades. We have a decade of growing aggression from Russia and defence and security must be and will be at the heart of this new government." Well, it is not.

The cuts are all part of the pretence that Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves can close a £22 billion ‘black hole’ in public finances she claimed she was unaware of until she entered office.  Nonsense!  As shadow Chancellor Reeves had access to all the necessary financial data from the Office of Budget Responsibility. What makes this decision more concerning is that Starmer had said that he would increase defence expenditure to 2.5% ‘when economic conditions allow’.  Well, it was announced this week that the British economy grew by 0.6% in the last quarter faster than any other G7 country.  So, when exactly will ‘economic conditions allow’?  The answer? Probably never. Rather, Starmer is engaging in a form of appeasement, the worst kind of ‘stop the world I want to get off’ politics.  Democracies do not get to choose the threats they must confront.

By contrast, striking train drivers who already earn a minimum of £60,000 per annum and enjoy 1960s work practices to boot will receive a 15% increase to their already bloated pay packets for their ‘service’ and all paid for by the taxpayer.  According to Reeves these are ‘affordable’ pay increases for Labour’s friends and far, far more than any rank-and-file British soldier, sailor, or airman can ever dream of earning for their real public service. 

Defence modernisation IS defence.  It is also critical to the strategic messages the new British government MUST send to allies and adversaries alike.  Armed forces must be continually and above all consistently modernised otherwise they might as well be scrapped. Maintaining the peace in a dangerous world depends on credible deterrence and defence, which means convincing the likes of Putin, Xi and other autocrats that Britain’s armed forces are fit for the threat they pose, and that London is willing to pull its defence-strategic weight within the NATO alliance. It is also about convincing the Americans that Britain is a credible ally, and that NATO is worth the American effort. Cutting defence modernisation does precisely the opposite. Trump?

Several future critical defence programmes and all the high-skilled jobs involved are now under threat.  These include the Minerva military intelligence satellite programme, and the Tempest Future Combat Air System Britain is developing with Italy and Japan.  Cut those programmes and allies will draw the clear conclusion that Britain can no longer be trusted as a defence industrial partner.   It is also interesting that the public funding deficit Reeves seeks to close is about the same as the deficit in the MoD’s Equipment Plan which is believed to be also close to £20 billion. MoD spending is a mess and needs vital reform but the problem at source is the gap between the kit the Armed Forces need to do the job the government imposes on them and said government’s willingness to pay for it. The mess that is the MoD will not be resolved by cutting this vital budget or micro-managing projects as is proposed.

My only source of comfort in yet another unfolding British defence funding fiasco is that Lord Robertson is leading the Strategic Defence Review.  Robertson is someone I hold in the highest regard as he comes from the same Labour tradition as I do – solid, patriotic, aspirational and pragmatic.  He is also a former NATO Secretary-General, and I find it hard to believe he would lead yet another anything-but-strategic ‘how much threat can we afford’ review. He will have his work cut as Sir Keir Starmer’s priorities are now clear: NATO and defending Britain (or anyone else for that matter) are not among them.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it is the unspeakable in receipt of the indefensible encouraging the dangerously unpredictable at the expense of Britain’s now undefendable.  Starmer the disarmer?

Julian Lindley-French