Keir Starmer scrambling to save face on defence — it’s too little, too late

The announced increase to the British defence budget is long overdue but welcome, if nonetheless underwhelming.

On Tuesday, PM Sir told the House of Commons defence spending would rise from 2.3 to 2.5 per cent of economic output by 2027.

Yet this still only amounts to an increase of just over £13bn a year while a promised increase to 3 per cent of GDP seems years away if it ever arrives at all.

Britain’s armed forces remain woefully underfunded with former army Lord Dannatt the latest grandee to sound the alarm.

In the PM’s defence, this underfunding is not simply Labour’s fault. The sat on the problem for over 14 years.

Meanwhile this defence increase will largely be funded by substantial cuts to the aid budget, long a demand of the political Right.

Yet, one must question how committed this government can be to Britain’s national defence when it is still looking to give away the super strategic Chagos Islands to Chinese ally Mauritius.

Right now, not only does the UK lack the manpower numbers but equipment and logistical support to truly defend the country and its allies.

As for the US, Britain’s defence crisis is further compounded by decades of deindustrialisation.

Chinese tech may be behind the West – although fast catching up with the latter – but China’s industrial base would afford the country a gargantuan wartime advantage.

The UK should surely not be so unprepared for war: after all, Britain remains one of only five recognised nuclear weapons states, one of just five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and fields one of the planet’s few blue water navies.

Lulled into a false sense of security after the Cold War, Britain risks being caught with its pants down as the tide goes out.

Yet like the US, the UK is one of the world’s major arms producers and exporters, home to giants like BAE and Rolls Royce.

Still, this matters little if the cash isn’t there, nor if there is confusion about what exactly the armed forces are for, something unlikely to be answered until the looming Strategic Defence Review.

Sir Keir’s announcement still then lacks urgency as outspends all Europe combined, as America pivots East, and as China does a remarkable impression of a country preparing for war.

Here is a tremendous opportunity for Reform UK – untainted as Labour and the are – to make the case not only for increased defence spending but for a revitalised role for the British military.

For starters, why doesn’t Britain coordinate with its Commonwealth siblings – Australia, Canada and New Zealand – as it did in Korea?

Why doesn’t the UK capitalise even more on its superstar research capabilities and arms companies?

Why doesn’t Britain kill two birds with one stone, mopping up the unemployment crisis – especially among young men – with a recruitment drive for the military, upskilling an entire generation?

So much potential, yet so little delivery. Sir Keir’s pledge is welcome and, to be fair, the are just as culpable as Labour for this woeful state of affairs.

But Britain is crying out for more and in a world as dangerous as ours the world needs an ever stronger and more powerful United Kingdom.