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Sir Keir Starmer announced his intention to increase British defense spending by 2.3% of national income to 2.5% by 2027, saying that the annual boost of 6 billion pounds sterling was essential to counter Russia’s “threat”.
Starmer told the House of Commons that additional expenses in this Parliament would be entirely funded by a reduction in the budget for aid abroad in Great Britain, admitting the country faced with “extremely difficult and painful choices”.
The British Prime Minister also expressed a longer -term ambition to spend 3% of GDP for the defense “in the following parliament”, while he was preparing to maintain this week with US President Donald Trump.
Starmer wants to convince Trump that Europe has the will to strengthen its own defenses, while it seeks to persuade the United States to maintain its security guarantee on Europe, including Ukraine.
The Labor leader told deputies on Tuesday that additional investment would be the “greatest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War”. Last year, Great Britain spent 53.9 billion pounds sterling for defense.
Unlike Trump, Starmer was clear about the origin of the threat he sought to dissuade: “Russia is a threat in our waters, in our airspace and in our streets.”
“We have to change our national security posture, because a generational challenge requires a generational response.”
He announced that the increase of 6 billion pounds of military spending would be fully funded by reducing the United Kingdom Help budget of 15.3 billion pounds sterling From 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% over the next two years.
The Cup echoes the Trump administration’s decision to dismantle the American agency for international development.
Starmer said that Great Britain would spend 13.4 billion pounds more for the defense “each year from 2027”, but this complaint was denounced as a “misunderstood figure” by the Institute for Studies tax.
“This figure only seems if we think that the defense budget would have been frozen in terms of money,” said Ben Zaranko, associate director of IFS.
Meanwhile, Starmer also expressed the ambition to increase defense spending to 3% of GDP “subject to economic and budgetary conditions” during the next parliament – which should take place from around 2029 to 2034.
The Prime Minister has long faced calls to denounce when the Labor Party respects his manifesto commitment to increase defense spending from his current level by 2.3% to 2.5%.
The increase in the military budget will cost between 5 billion pounds sterling and 6 billion pounds sterling per year from 2027, which is equivalent to around 10% of the basic budget of schools in England.
Pressure has folded in recent weeks after Trump has expressed his intention to obtain a rapid ceasefire in the Ukraine War and to question his appetite to continue to provide important American military support to Europe.
British military leaders pushed private for the British defense budget to further increase to 2.65% of GDP, which would be 10 billion pounds more each year than the current budget.
Starmer said defense expenses would increase GDP to 2.6% after 2027, if expenses from the United Kingdom intelligence were included.
Admiral Lord Alan West, former head of the Royal Navy and former Minister of Labor, said that the most urgent priority was to “sort the” digging “from British forces – such as stocks of ammunition, the Missiles and artillery – which has been accelerated according to donations from military aid in Ukraine by Great Britain.
Earlier Tuesday, conservative chief Kemi Badenoch called on the government to “reuse” the aid budget to finance a defense spending and said that 2.5% expenses by the end of the decade were “Now less”.
She said in a speech by the London Policy Exchange reflection group that she would support Starmer to “make difficult decisions” to increase defense spending.
Activists criticized the Starmer’s decision to reduce the aid budget to finance the increase in defense expenses.
Romilly Greenhill, Bond CEO, The UK Network for NGO, described the decision as “myopic and appalling” and said that it would have “devastating consequences for millions of marginalized people in the world” and “weaken our own interests national security ”.
The British aid budget was set at 0.7% of gross national income under former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, but was reduced to 0.5% by the Chancellor of the Rishi Sunak era during the Pandemia COVID-19.
Sunak, who was later the Prime Minister, had promised to restore him at a higher rate when “the budgetary circumstances allowed”.
