![\"Stephanie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5ANXS2XB2VDUDE7BRIBQNPKHUI.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nStarmer told the cabinet (it used to be \u2018his\u2019 cabinet) on Tuesday that what used to be his government would be taking no more major decisions that had financial consequences except for the Defence Investment Plan, which had caused his former Defence Secretary and Armed Forces Minister to resign. <\/p>\n
Apparently he wants raising the defence budget towards 2.5% of GDP by 2027, the biggest rise since the end of the Cold War, to be part of his legacy.<\/p>\n
Both the MoD and, naturally, the military, think it falls short by about \u00a315 billion. They wanted \u00a328bn but Starmer is sticking at \u00a313bn. <\/p>\n
It may be one of the elements in Starmer\u2019s legacy but if it is, it\u2019s one which exhibits his weakness, timidity and failure to address Britain\u2019s continuing delusions of grandeur, which Starmer\u2019s premiership demonstrated in spades. <\/p>\n
People are already saying that while he failed on domestic policy, he was a success on \u2018the world stage\u2019. He wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true he spent a lot of time abroad, especially in his first six months as prime minister \u2013 26 trips.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s travelled to Washington, Paris and Brussels and to G7 meetings obsequious as a needy hanger-on, all in his futile quest to show that Britain is a \u2018world leader\u2019. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not. It\u2019s a medium-sized European country whose governments have never come to terms with their comedown from imperial power.<\/p>\n
![\"Sir](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/EYL6PRFANNLRLBBJPLQPVCGRQI.jpg\")
Britain is a medium-sized European country whose governments have never come to terms with their comedown from imperial power (Henry Nicholls\/PA) <\/p>\n
That\u2019s what Starmer, like so many British prime ministers before him, failed to address. That\u2019s what the wrangle about defence spending is about. <\/p>\n
Partly, that\u2019s what Brexit was about. All that waffle from Johnson and his gang about \u2018global Britain\u2019. Everything was \u2018world class\u2019.<\/p>\n
Starmer adopted a lot of that waffle with his union flag always behind him and rabbiting on about \u2018British values\u2019. <\/p>\n
In June 2025, Starmer published the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), which he said was the first of its kind.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t. It was the fourth in five years and wasn\u2019t \u2018root and branch\u2019 as he claimed.<\/p>\n
In fact it only watered down the bonkers stuff in the Conservative government\u2019s 2021 review, which talked about an \u201cIndo-Pacific tilt\u201d away from Europe. Come onnn… <\/p>\n
Starmer\u2019s SDR proposed buying F35A jets costing billions and capable of carrying nuclear bombs and missiles, building armament factories, and acquiring more frigates and destroyers.<\/p>\n
It identified \u201ca deadly quartet of nations: Iran, North Korea, Russia and China\u201d. The then Defence Secretary said they were \u201can active alliance of aggression from autocrats\u201d. <\/p>\n
Do these hyperbolic descriptions justify rearmament? Russia can\u2019t beat Ukraine after four years.<\/p>\n
There\u2019ll be no war between Britain and China, North Korea or Iran that Britain does not choose to enter \u2013 or which the\u202fUS\u202fdoesn\u2019t choose for it. <\/p>\n
A lot of the wildly expensive equipment the SDR proposes to buy is not defensive, but expeditionary. The SDR and the proposed Defence Investment Plan ask the wrong questions.<\/p>\n
![\"HMS](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/RVB2NATGBRPLJGKKXB5CAJHJKQ.jpg\")
HMS Vigilant, one of Britain\u2019s four nuclear-armed submarines (Danny Lawson\/PA) <\/p>\n
It should be what does a medium-sized European country need to defend itself?<\/p>\n
Instead, Starmer talks about leading his fictional \u2018coalition of the willing\u2019 to defend Ukraine or leading a NATO exercise in the Arctic. <\/p>\n
Even some of the military have criticised the gap between rhetoric and reality.<\/p>\n
Britain has 71,000 troops. Starmer would station 10% of them as an ill-equipped peacekeeping force if there\u2019s a truce between Ukraine and Russia. <\/p>\n
Starmer has taken money from every government department to pay for this performative extravaganza and has decimated foreign aid so the boys can have toys to fire and fly. <\/p>\n
Why does it matter to anyone here? To give her her due, the only local politician who has pointed out the consequences is Michelle O\u2019Neill. As she said, it\u2019s a choice between warfare and welfare. <\/p>\n
Britain has the lowest benefit and welfare payments in Europe. Starmer and some in his cabinet want to cut them further to pay for weaponry. Incredibly, a large part of what Starmer chose to do was to please Trump.<\/p>\n
He could have taken a leaf out of Pedro Sanchez\u2019s book, who told Trump that Spain isn\u2019t about to be attacked so there\u2019ll be no increase in defence spending. <\/p>\n
Exactly the same is true of Britain, but Starmer and many in his government can\u2019t bear to admit Britain\u2019s diminished role in the world. <\/p>\n
They prefer to impoverish Britain to pretend it\u2019s a world leader. <\/p>\n
\n If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article and would like to submit a \n Letters to the Editor are invited on any subject. They should be authenticated with a full name, address and a daytime telephone number.
\n Letter to the Editor<\/a>
\n to be considered for publication,
\n please click here<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pen names are not allowed.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IN 1962, Dean Acheson, a former US Secretary of State, in a speech at the American military academy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1052854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,64335,184976,4884,1144,34323,285,712,16,15,1764,51029],"class_list":["post-1052853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-g20","tag-g20-summit","tag-great-britain","tag-northern-ireland","tag-pa2025","tag-politics","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales","tag-wparota"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116820456764306394","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1052854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}