Kemi Badenoch has called on Sir Keir Starmer to cut welfare and foreign aid and plough the savings into defence, as pressure grows on the Prime Minister to use his White House trip this week to announce a boost for the Armed Forces.
The Tory leader tells Sir Keir in a letter that ‘this is no time for dither’, arguing: ‘History has been unforgiving to politicians who, faced with growing threats, chose procrastination over action.’
Last night No 10 described as ‘speculation’ reports that the Prime Minister will set out a clear timescale for the country to hit a target for 2.5 per cent of Britain’s wealth to be spent on defence sooner than the 2030 deadline promised by the last Government.
But a minister told The Mail on Sunday that Cabinet opposition led by Chancellor Rachel Reeves had been quashed.
The minister said: ‘People within Cabinet have had different views, but the issue’s been settled. We’re not going to wait until 2030 to hit the 2.5 per cent target. A new timeframe is going to be announced.’
Writing ahead of tomorrow’s third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ms Badenoch criticises Labour for abandoning the 2030 target.
She says the money could be found by repurposing money from the overseas development aid budget, making savings from the welfare bill and scrapping the surrender of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
She argues that Sir Keir’s decision was ‘indefensible’, saying: ‘Why did you think, as it became apparent that Russia was trying to strengthen its hand, that cancelling planned increases in defence expenditure up to 2030 was right?’
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has urged the Prime Minister to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by cutting foreign aid
The move comes after former head of the Army Lord Dannatt warned last weekend that Sir Keir needed to increase defence spending dramatically to counter the threat of Putin or face the prospect of his Premiership being consigned to the ‘dustbin of history’.
The peer, who was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009, issued a challenge to Sir Keir to increase defence spending from its current level of 2.3 per cent of GDP to as much as 3.5 per cent, warning that the UK military was now so ‘run-down’ it would be unable to make a proper contribution to a European peacekeeping force.
He said: ‘The UK would have to supply quite a proportion of that and we couldn’t do it. Our military is so run-down at the moment, and as far as capability and equipment is concerned, it would potentially be quite embarrassing.’
Ms Badenoch adds: ‘This is no time for dither… It has been apparent for years that the world is becoming more dangerous.
Sir Keir Starmer was warned by former Army chief Lord Dannatt that he would be confined ‘to the dustbin of history’ if he failed to increase defence spending to counter the threat from Putin
‘In East Asia and the Middle East, for example, authoritarian states and malign actors are determined to attack our allies and threaten the international order.
‘The threat to Britain is most acute in Europe itself. Putin’s brutal and unprovoked war has meant Ukraine is not only fighting for its own territory but is on the front line defending our whole value system.
‘Putin’s Russia poses an existential threat to the entire European order, which has held for the last 80 years.
‘I will always back you when you do the right thing. But I will not be silent about the risks facing our country and our security. History has been unforgiving to politicians who, faced with growing threats, chose procrastination over action.’