{"id":66522,"date":"2026-06-19T15:33:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/66522\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T15:33:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:33:36","slug":"britain-needs-a-new-prime-minister-that-will-stop-the-war-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/66522\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain needs a new Prime Minister that will stop the war drive\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The return of Andy Burnham to Parliament means that a leadership challenge is coming which could result in a new British Prime Minister. Burnham has said this is a final chance to change. What is clear is that the change we need from the British government is an end is its drive to war-readiness and nuclear expansion which is making the world more dangerous, putting our populations at risk and dragging us into deeper poverty and social deprivation.<\/p>\n

Dropping support for military spending hikes
Public backing for military spending hikes is dropping. Polling published<\/a> earlier this month by IPSOS found that support for military spending hikes at the cost of higher taxes, borrowing, or cuts to public services, dropped by 11% from 48% in March 2026 to 37% when the survey was conducted at the end of May 2026.<\/p>\n

Opposition to military spending hikes was highest when it came at the expense of personal taxes (50%), decrease to public services spending (45%), and increased government borrowing (42%).<\/p>\n

War economy: myths versus reality
The Ministry of Defence\u2019s current budget for 2025\/26 is currently \u00a362.2 billion, with the MoD claiming it faces a \u00a328 billion \u2018black hole\u2019 for its current spending plans to 2030. But according to analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, British military spending in real terms is now actually higher than during the Cold War. While figures published recently by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show that Britain\u2019s military spending has already increased by 32% since 2016.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s nuclear weapons programmes is becoming an increasingly larger proportion of this budget. Funding for the Defence Nuclear Organisation, which oversees Britain\u2019s nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarine fleets and warheads, stood for around 20% of the MoD\u2019s total budget this year, which that proportion expected to rise to 25% in the coming years. Many of these nuclear programmes have been deemed \u201cunachievable\u201d to delivery successfully according to the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA).<\/p>\n

How has this boosted the economy so far? While the promise of job creation and a positive impact on youth employment increased support by those asked in the IPSOS poll, the reality is that a war economy will not boost jobs or improve the economy significantly. For example, areas where some of Britain\u2019s largest nuclear weapons manufacturers have been based for decades, like Barrow-in-Furness and Devonport, remain amongst the most deprived in the country.<\/p>\n

In fact, the military sector is amongst the least jobs-rich economic sectors when compared to other areas of spending like healthcare and transport. Redirecting military spending into these areas will be far more effective in supporting economic growth and creating jobs. But it is also totally reckless to raid the budgets of public services that are vital to protect the population from the looming global recession caused by the illegal war on Iran. This would only make the country more insecure, not less.<\/p>\n

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolts said:
\u201cMore and more people are understanding that redirecting money from public services to the military will not improve the wider economy. It will only accelerate the risk of war and potential nuclear use \u2013 with arms companies the main winners.<\/p>\n

Britain does need a change in direction \u2013 but that means prioritising political solutions to conflict through dialogue. We need a government that focuses on protecting the population from the looming cost of living crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The return of Andy Burnham to Parliament means that a leadership challenge is coming which could result in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[7786,13,94,183,23138,6669],"class_list":["post-66522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","tag-andy-burnham","tag-britain","tag-keir-starmer","tag-labour","tag-military-spending","tag-nuclear-weapons"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116777504418330981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66522","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=66522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}