The Labour Party government has conducted its latest defence spending review. One campaign group has condemned it as “grotesque” – while another has said it will “worsen the crises” that we already face.
Defence spending review already facing a backlash from MPs
On Monday 2 June, Keir Starmer unveiled the UK’s Strategic Defence Review, outlining his government’s plan for the military.
Speaking at BAE Systems’ shipyard in Glasgow, Starmer emphasized the need for Britain to become “battle-ready,” committing to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027-28, with an ambition to reach 3% in the next parliament, contingent on economic conditions.
The 130-page defence spending review, led by former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, addresses the UK’s preparedness for potential conflicts in Europe or the Atlantic. Key initiatives include the construction of six new munitions factories, a £15 billion investment in nuclear weapons modernization, and the commissioning of up to 12 SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines. These measures aim to bolster the UK’s defence industrial base and create thousands of skilled jobs nationwide.
Despite these investments, the defence spending review does not propose immediate increases in troop numbers. Defence Secretary John Healey acknowledged the British Army’s current strength at a historic low of 70,860 personnel, with plans to address recruitment and retention challenges deferred until after the next general election.
Moreover, Labour has already faced the wrath of MPs and the Speaker of the House of Commons. This is because the government briefed the media on the defence spending review before briefing parliament.
On top of this, campaign groups have also hit back.
Risking nuclear war
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) noted that:
It’s announcement that it plans to build up to 12 nuclear-powered submarines, as part of the AUKUS Treaty with the US and Australia, will increase tensions as an already volatile situation is developing in the Asia-Pacific.
This Treaty drives nuclear proliferation and breaches the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is because it facilitates the sharing of nuclear technology with Australia, a non-nuclear weapons state.
Similarly, at a time of escalating dangers in Ukraine, the government’s decision to attempt to secure nuclear-capable F-35A fighter jets from the US is, according to CND, “utterly reckless and risks this conflict again escalating to the brink of nuclear war – as we saw in November last year”.
These fighter jets have been designed to launch satellite-guided B61-12 nuclear bombs, designed to be used ‘on the battlefield’. The destructive power of these bombs range from 0.3 kilotons to 50 kilotons. The ‘smallest’ bomb could kill about 4,000 people, the largest over 600,000. All release deadly radioactive fall-out.
CND said:
Launching a nuclear bomb on the battlefield – whatever its size – is nuclear war. It risks killing thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people. It would give thousands more generational cancers from radiation poisoning. And it would poison and devastate the environment.
The defence spending review is hawkish and misplaced
If the deal goes ahead, it means Britain will be paying for US jets, loaded with US nuclear weapons, directed, targeted and controlled by US-led NATO command, stationed at a US airbase where Britain has almost no jurisdiction.
CND said that the defence spending review “has nothing to do with the security interests of British people”. It noted how the majority of the population – 61% – oppose US nuclear weapons being stationed here. Instead it has everything to do with Britain helping the US prepare to carry out a nuclear war.
CND noted that:
Instead, the government should be shifting towards a significantly demilitarised defence strategy that is focused on human security and common security – prioritising diplomacy, global cooperation, conflict prevention.
This means redirecting spending into tackling the scourge of rising poverty – both in Britain and globally – rebuilding public services like health and education, and meeting international obligations on climate action. Spending in these areas have greater job multiplier outcomes than on military spending – as outlined in the recently published Alternative Defence Review supported by CND.
Worsening all our lives
CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:
This government seems intent on worsening the crises that we face. Increasing nuclear threats does not make us safer and drives climate chaos. It channels hundreds of billions of public funds into arms companies and their shareholders’ pockets, whilst populations living in places like Barrow that make these nuclear weapons continue to live in poverty and deprivation. It is absolutely urgent that voices calling for a halt to this reckless war drive are heard.
Meanwhile, also responding to the defence spending review, Stop the War vice chair Chris Nineham said:
Increasing defence spending to up to 3% of GDP, procuring more and more weapons of war, including the commissioning of 12 new attack submarines, investing £1.5b for more munitions factories and £15b for nuclear weapons production, and all the while slashing welfare, is simply grotesque.
Keir Starmer, John Healey and the Ministry of Defence have spent the days before the release of this spending review painting a picture of the most heightened military and security threat since the end of the cold war. They say they want the UK to move to ‘war-fighting readiness’, but talking up a new era of threat while tying an ailing economy even more to military production only makes the threat of war more likely.
The reality is that Russia’s economy is roughly the size of Spain and Putin is vastly outnumbered militarily by NATO powers. He has barely occupied 18% of Ukraine and poses no threat to Warsaw or Berlin, let alone London.
There is an alternative
Nineham noted how the pledges in this review are:
even more grotesque given the eye-watering record profits being made by the arms manufacturers and their shareholders as a result of the endless conflicts which are only perpetuated by these levels of increased defence spending – paid for with our tax pounds and by slashing the welfare budget.
The claim that building more munitions factories and submarines will help British jobs should fool no one.
As the Alternative Defence Review explains, military spending generates a smaller economic multiplier than any other public investments, meaning it generates less overall economic activity and fewer secondary benefits than spending on essential services and infrastructure.
Any big increase in spending, such as on housing and health, would have a more beneficial impact on the economy and create more jobs. Build new hospitals, schools, and homes instead, because the security at home that the government talks of is created by ensuring people have a roof over their heads, decent education and access to good healthcare, not by creating an ever more dangerous world through this drive to militarism.
The defence spending review is a disgrace
Nineham summed up by saying:
The only beneficiaries of this defence review will be the warmongers and the arms companies. They want wars to continue. It is not in any of our interests to do anything but oppose them.
So we urge everyone who is able to join the #WelfareNotWarfare bloc at next Saturday’s People’s Assembly national demonstration to send a clear message to the government that this drive to war is not in our name.
These announcements in the defence spending review show the disastrous direction that the British government is taking. It is attempting to expand its nuclear delivery systems to both sea- and air-launched, in its preparation for “war-fighting readiness”.
Far from preventing war, Labour’s actions only accelerate the drive towards such a war, which threatens to go nuclear.
Featured image via the Canary
