{"id":14222,"date":"2026-04-14T16:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T16:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/14222\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T16:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T16:45:17","slug":"failing-britain-labour-stalwart-has-turned-on-starmer-now-he-must-listen-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/14222\/","title":{"rendered":"Failing Britain! Labour stalwart has turned on Starmer \u2013 now he must listen | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

As stinging criticism goes, Lord George Robertson’s scathing attack on Labour’s “corrosive complacency\u201d<\/a> regarding defence<\/a> is about as strong as it gets. For months, the warnings over the state of Britain’s military<\/a> have been getting louder and louder.<\/p>\n

The intervention by Lord Robertson, a former NATO<\/a> secretary general and Labour defence secretary who led the Government\u2019s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), is perhaps the most deafening yet. Lord Robertson\u2019s warning that the UK is \u201cunderprepared\u201d and its \u201csafety is in peril\u201d will be ringing in the ears of officials within Whitehall. But what now is Labour<\/a>\u2019s move \u2013 continue with the defence delays, or wake up and smell the coffee that many will say has been brewing for years?<\/p>\n

Decades of salami slicing have slowly chipped away at the armed forces. The Royal Navy<\/a> has been at the centre of the storm in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

The reality of repeated cuts and a lack of warships was horribly exposed as the Navy scrambled to get HMS Dragon to the Eastern Mediterranean, arriving three weeks after an RAF base on Cyprus was hit by a drone.<\/p>\n

Warnings Iran had developed missiles capable of striking London \u2013 and that we are effectively sitting ducks without NATO help on the continent \u2013 have become another reminder of the parlous state of defence.<\/p>\n

Yet the Government\u2019s Defence Investment Plan, setting out details on new equipment orders and capabilities, remains nowhere to be seen after months of delays.<\/p>\n

The Government says it will happen “as soon as possible\u201d, but no date has been given. This pledge means very little to our hardworking defence industry, which has been left in \u201cparalysis\u201d by the holdup. It is understood that a tug of war between the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence over funding is the reason for the delay.<\/p>\n

But Lord Robertson is very clear, this tussle is leaving Britain vulnerable as international stability teeters and creaks. His SDR co-author, Gen Sir Richard Barrons, agreed with his concerns.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s defence policy is being questioned like never before.<\/p>\n

This is not political point-scoring, but as Gen Sir Richard points out, warnings from a long-term Labour politician who has \u201chad to say it in these terms\u201d.<\/p>\n

For now, let\u2019s hope Lord Robertson\u2019s concerns of “complacency” and \u201cperil\u201d do not escalate to catastrophe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As stinging criticism goes, Lord George Robertson’s scathing attack on Labour’s “corrosive complacency\u201d regarding defence is about as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,1815,94,31,1816,6541],"class_list":{"0":"post-14222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-defence","10":"tag-keir-starmer","11":"tag-labour-party","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-news-section"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116404074881535709","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}