PM Starmer fails to secure additional funding for UK defence budget

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said he was unable to find additional funding for Britain’s armed forces following the resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey.

Responding to a question from POLITICO at the G7 summit in France, Starmer said he had already taken a series of “hard-edged” decisions to strengthen the armed forces, including reducing overseas aid last year and pushing for departmental spending cuts in recent weeks to finalise the Defence Investment Plan.

However, he added that Healey’s replacement, Dan Jarvis, is now “reading into” the plan and deciding “where he wants that money to be spent,” suggesting the process is still incomplete and that there is no additional funding beyond the £13.5 billion currently allocated to the long-delayed review.

Disagreement over the pace of defence spending was cited as the reason for the resignation of former Defence Secretary John Healey, who said the measures being taken were insufficient “in this time of increasing threats.”

In a letter to Keir Starmer, the former minister warned that even by 2030 defence spending would only reach 2.68% of GDP, while Starmer has previously pledged to raise it to 3% of GDP by 2029.

By Jeyhun Aghazada