In a rare moment of clarity on defence spending by the UK government, Keir Starmer has announced a huge expansion. Avoidable deaths are happening under his nose, both at home and across the world. Feeding the war machine, this spending is out of control and out of touch. We should never be choosing bombs over basic human needs.
Starmer has today revealed that the UK will build up to 12 attack submarines and spend £15 billion more on its nuclear weapons strategy. With a clear focus on the threat of Russia – while again sweeping Gaza under the rug and treating the atrocities as someone else’s problem – how and why are we spending so much?
This isn’t really about defence. It’s about ego, influence, and still being America’s lapdog. NATO allies currently have a defence investment guideline of 2% of their GDP, set in 2014 by Heads of State and Government. Sounds democratic enough. Now, there’s pressure to push this to 3.5%. Yes, the world has changed, but fronting this change is Trump. And he wants more. Of course, whatever Trump does or wants, the UK embarrassingly seems to follow. And it’s us paying the price.
A month into Trump’s second presidency, Starmer’s government announced that defence spending will rise to 2.5% of GDP by 2027. This came with an ‘ambition’ to reach 3% after the next general election. Sounds solid. At least we all have the same level of confidence in this government. And even if these weak plans do pull through, Starmer said this will be funded by cutting the UK’s aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP in 2027. Funding nukes over feeding the hungry – quite the priority list.
Speaking at an event on the UK’s arms sales, Jeremy Corbyn says: “We’re a world threatened with environmental disaster, riven by inequality and poverty and injustice at a global level, as well as the inequality in our own society, and we are proposing to spend more and more money on weapons with the preparedness to go to war.”
Welfare vs warfare seems to be a moral conflict for the government. Recently, a £5 billion cut to disability and out-of-work benefits was proposed, while increasing defence spending to the highest levels since the cold war, with a ‘reinvigorated approach to the defence industry’. “I know which I’d rather do. I’d rather help people who are living in poverty and distress and need that support because of their disabilities, rather than lining the pockets of already very, very wealthy arms dealers and arms brokers,” says Corbyn.
Shock – Corbyn is critical of the government. The same government that kicked him out of the party he had represented for four decades. But his criticism of warfare has extended longer than his parliamentary career. According to him, families aren’t seen by the weapons industry. Instead: data. “Go to arms fares around the world and you will find the surveillance equipment will be on sale. They’ll say ‘let’s show you how we used it in Palestine. We’ll show you how it worked in Ukraine,’” says Corbyn. “These conflicts become laboratories.”
The government’s defence spending and associated sale of weapons to Israel have been raising placards as well as eyebrows up and down the country for months. But next to nothing has been done where it counts – inside Parliament. On 4 June, Corbyn is hoping to break the deafening silence by introducing a Private Member’s Bill. “This will call for a Chilcot-style inquiry – with teeth – into British policy making and arms purchases in relation to the conflict going on now against the Palestinian people,” he says. The silence is shocking, and the inaction is deliberate.
We can’t avoid it. The geopolitical state of the world is scary. But Starmer’s commitment to being “war-fighting ready”, plunging us forward at a “war time pace” is hardly reassuring. Particularly given how it’s being funded. With the risk of sounding like a Reform voter, we need to focus on problems closer to home. Creating more both nationally and internationally can never be justified. Not now. Not ever. Especially when fronted by an orange, self proclaimed saviour.
