Published on
The UK’s outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday that Britain would spend almost £300 billion (€348 billion) over the next four years to modernize its armed forces amid rising threats.
ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING
Starmer, expected to leave office next month after losing the support of Labor MPs, announced that the overall defense budget would increase by £15 billion (€17 billion) over the next four years to almost £300 billion, as he launched his long-awaited 10-year Defense Investment Plan.
“Last year I made the decision in the national interest to reprioritize aid spending towards defense and achieved the biggest uplift in defense spending since the end of the Cold War,” Starmer said in a speech.
“That was the right choice because the world has changed. National security is economic security.”
“Today we uplift defense spending further. An additional £15 billion worth of funding by…reprioritizing spending across government,” he said.
The plan includes more than £5 billion (€5.8 billion) for drones and autonomous systems over the next four years, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said earlier in a press release.
The announcement follows months of wrangling within Starmer’s Labor government over the resources required to modernize the UK’s armed forces in the face of rising threats, including from Russia.
Two defense ministers quit earlier this month in a row over spending proposals, including defense secretary John Healey who said the plans risked making Britain “less safe.”
The UK’s pledge came as US President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged NATO allies to spend more on defense and become less reliant on Washington for security.
Trump has long questioned the value of the military alliance and complained that the United States provides security to European countries that don’t pull their weight.
The plan is a road map for how the UK will increase military spending to NATO’s target of 3.5% of GDP by 2035.
The UK military is seeking to reverse years of decline in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia, which invaded its neighbor Ukraine in 2022 and increasingly tests the defenses of European nations with overt and covert activity.
The UK has watched how drones have transformed war in Ukraine, which uses 200,000 of them a month to defend against Russian forces.
Britain plans to invest billions in drone systems across all branches of the military. Instead of a planned fleet of new destroyers, the Royal Navy will get hybrid vessels that will act as command hubs for drones.
“The very nature of conflict is changing before our eyes,” Starmer said during a speech at a drone manufacturer near London. He said that, armed with cutting-edge technology, Ukrainian forces have destroyed Russia’s Black Sea fleet, “struck deep into Russian territory and stopped the advance of one of the biggest armies in the world.”
The resignations of Healey and junior Defense Minister Al Carns were among a series of blows that prompted Starmer to announce last week that he will resign.
He is likely to attend a NATO summit in Turkey on July 7-8 in one of his last acts as prime minister.
His successor, likely the former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, will be under pressure to stick to the commitments in the defense plan.
Opposition Conservative Party defense spokesman James Cartlidge said the plan was “too little, too late.”
“The plan is now almost a year overdue and only being rushed through because Keir Starmer is desperate for a legacy,” he said.
Additional sources • AP, AFP