Another Great British Defence Lie

 

April 7th.  Another British government, another great defence lie. Sadly, Britain can no longer be trusted as a reliable defence ally because it is now a paper power not a real power in which ministers routinely mislead the true enemy – the British people – about the state of the Armed Forces.  London is letting down the Americans, its NATO allies but above all it is letting down me, the British citizen.  This will be my message to this week’s London Defence Conference at which I will speak.

Last week the Government said and I quote, “The Government is providing a generational increase in defence spending with an extra £270 billion across this Parliament, ensuring no return to the hollowed-out forces of the past and the strategic defence review sets out our path to increasing warfighting readiness".  Since then, someone on the inside of the government has been in touch who I greatly like and respect.  The message – the cost of social security has finally broken national security and George Robertson’s much-lauded Strategic Defence Review 2025 has been abandoned under pressure from His Majesty’s (strategically-illiterate) Treasury (finance ministry) and the hard-Left of the Parliamentary Labour Party to whom Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now beholden.

The proof?  The Defence Investment Plan (DIP) and the Defence (Un)Readiness Bill.  The DIP was meant to be published at the end of 2025 but is now unlikely to be released until the summer recess of Parliament to minimise political fall-out.  This is because the Armed Forces need an additional £28 billion just to stand still with the cost of fixing the current Lilliputian conventional force £16 billion. The £18 billion that had been earmarked for defence when Starmer said in 2025 he wanted to put Britain’s forces on a war-footing has instead been diverted to appease the lunatic Left.  The Defence Readiness Bill?  It is far from ready.

The current projections HM Treasury are using confirm there will be a REAL TERMS CUT in Britain’s forces but to mask that defence inflation will be used to claim that in cash terms Britain has reached the promised 2.5% target by 2027. In other words, whilst the defence budget will appear to grow there will be even less force than there is today.  London is also inflating so called ‘resilience’ investments to given the impression of defence investment by appearing to move towards the NATO target of 5% GDP on defence of which 1.5% is invested in greater ‘resilience’. ‘Resilience’ now includes expenditures that have nothing to do with defence, such as flood protection and military aid to the civilian authorities (MACA).  

It is not just Britain’s allies and partners who are being let down.  Take the Royal Navy.  IF, the efforts to end the Type 45 destroyer gap and the Astute SSN gap are realised (a big if), AND the 8 Types 26 Global Combat Ships and 5 Type 31 Inspiration class ships are delivered as planned the Royal Navy will return to 10 deployable destroyers and frigates in the early 2030s.  At present it has only 6 destroyers and frigates that are operational, some of which are the hull-expired Type 23 frigates.  However, there will not be the planned 13 such ships available until 2041 at the earliest, and most certainly not the 17 ships that the Secretary of State John Healey claimed the Royal Navy had last month. It is a lack of availability and readiness caused by chronic underfunding and paper planning  Take the Type 23 frigates. The Lloyd's Registry of naval ships has since 2000 certified Royal Navy ships as fit for service.  However, because an uncertified ship imposes liability London has been forced to scrap Type 23 with utterly worn out hulls far earlier than planned because the cost of fixing them is prohibitive.

Then there is the Norway deal.  The creation of an integrated fleet of British and Norwegian ships to cover the vast Arctic and North Atlantic is a good idea.  However, to ensure the Norwegians receive ships no later than the mid-2030s Type 26s hulls that were meant for the Royal Navy will now go to the Norwegians. Worse, another government insider told me that the Treasury is considering using the Norwegian deal to further reduce the number of hulls for the Royal Navy by counting the Norwegian ships as British ships. They are not.  They will then either cut the programme or order much cheaper Batch 2 Type 31s. It is a similar story for the Army and the Royal Air Force.

It is a mark of the dangerous groupthink within the Westminster-Whitehall bubble that according to another insider such defence sleight of hand is regarded as politically adept.  In fact, it is a ‘stop the world I want to get off’ strategy beloved of short-termist government economists and strategically inept ministers who do not understand how wars start or their own responsibility in preserving the peace.  

The consequences?  Let me finish with a quote from an insider who is not at all prone to hyperbole: “I am about to say something that will surprise you. This is a government of traitors and appeasers. They have abandoned their allies, in the US, and the Gulf States, and Jordan, and Israel. They are letting down Japan on GCAP (Global Combat Air Programme) and will soon let down Australia on AUKUS. When Mr Starmer talks of getting the UK on a war readiness footing, remember he is talking about class war, not world war”.

Which brings me to the greatest lie of all.  It is said the first duty of the state is to defend the realm.   That is not how politicians see it. Their first duty is to themselves and staying in power. If that means lying to the British people by imposing ever greater risk on them for short-term political benefit, then so be it.

Shame on you!

Julian Lindley-French