A Telegraph investigation has found that, under Conservative and Labour governments, Britain has fallen to third from bottom among NATO allies for growth in defence spending since 2014.
After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, NATO agreed that members would spend at least 2% of their national GDP on defence. Since then Britain’s defence spending as a share of GDP has barely moved, rising from 2.17% to 2.35%. In cash terms, it has increased by less than 35%, while most NATO members have more than doubled their spending.
No amount of ministerial spin can make these numbers look any better. Britain, long considered NATO’s second military power after the mighty US, is now being outpaced not only by frontline states like Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, but even by countries traditionally viewed as weaker on defence, such as Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Our Armed Forces have been hollowed out. The Army is at its smallest since the Napoleonic Wars. The Royal Navy is barely afloat. Britain’s credibility has been weakened at a time when Europe is facing the gravest security threat in a generation.
Last week, Labour finally published its long-delayed Defence Investment Plan, supposedly the document that would put its Strategic Defence Review into practice. It promised an extra £15 billion for defence over four years, with no detailed spending plan beyond 2029/30. Spread across the scale of Britain’s military decline, that is nowhere near enough. As Reform UK MP Danny Kruger put it, “we are falling behind our allies and our enemies. Welfare spending will rise by 3 times the increase in defence spending announced [in the DIP]”.
Yet the Labour government is trying to ignore this grim reality and pretend that Britain is leading the way in building European defence to become less reliant on the US military.
At this week’s NATO summit, outgoing prime minister Keir Starmer pledged Britain to build a “more European Nato than ever before”, which will stand “ready to support Ukraine and face the long-term threat posed by an increasingly reckless and dangerous Russia”. This fantasy rearmament plan amounts to little more than a game of toy soldiers. Meanwhile in the real world Britain is incapable of sending Navy warships to defend our sovereign territory in Cyprus against Iranian attacks.
Britain needs a government that will rebuild our Armed Forces and put national security first. Reform UK is the only party that is serious about defence. After years of Labour and Tory failure, this country needs leaders who understand that national security is not optional. It is the first duty of government.
After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, NATO agreed that members would spend at least 2% of their national GDP on defence. Since then Britain’s defence spending as a share of GDP has barely moved, rising from 2.17% to 2.35%. In cash terms, it has increased by less than 35%, while most NATO members have more than doubled their spending.
No amount of ministerial spin can make these numbers look any better. Britain, long considered NATO’s second military power after the mighty US, is now being outpaced not only by frontline states like Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, but even by countries traditionally viewed as weaker on defence, such as Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Our Armed Forces have been hollowed out. The Army is at its smallest since the Napoleonic Wars. The Royal Navy is barely afloat. Britain’s credibility has been weakened at a time when Europe is facing the gravest security threat in a generation.
Last week, Labour finally published its long-delayed Defence Investment Plan, supposedly the document that would put its Strategic Defence Review into practice. It promised an extra £15 billion for defence over four years, with no detailed spending plan beyond 2029/30. Spread across the scale of Britain’s military decline, that is nowhere near enough. As Reform UK MP Danny Kruger put it, “we are falling behind our allies and our enemies. Welfare spending will rise by 3 times the increase in defence spending announced [in the DIP]”.
Yet the Labour government is trying to ignore this grim reality and pretend that Britain is leading the way in building European defence to become less reliant on the US military.
At this week’s NATO summit, outgoing prime minister Keir Starmer pledged Britain to build a “more European Nato than ever before”, which will stand “ready to support Ukraine and face the long-term threat posed by an increasingly reckless and dangerous Russia”. This fantasy rearmament plan amounts to little more than a game of toy soldiers. Meanwhile in the real world Britain is incapable of sending Navy warships to defend our sovereign territory in Cyprus against Iranian attacks.
Britain needs a government that will rebuild our Armed Forces and put national security first. Reform UK is the only party that is serious about defence. After years of Labour and Tory failure, this country needs leaders who understand that national security is not optional. It is the first duty of government.
Picture by: Roberto Catarinicchia.
