Ir Keir Starmer told MPS on Tuesday that the UK is facing a “worldly changed world.”
In the gloomy House of Commons, there was a sense that what Priority called “postwar order” was being redrawn.
The pace is accelerating. On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Rachel Reeves will meet the EU finance minister at a G20 meeting in Cape Town to discuss new funding mechanisms to rebuild Europe’s besieged defenses.
On Thursday, the star met Trump at the White House to appeal to maintain US security guarantees in Europe, and the British Prime Minister is about to hold a new round of defense talks with European leaders in London on Sunday.
Amidst the gust of activity, the UK’s foreign policy attitude changed overnight. A country that once boasted itself as a “superpower of aid” that spent 0.7% of its national income on foreign aid, now no longer generous.
“That’s not an announcement that I’m happy I could make,” he said, adding that the aid budget has already been cut to 0.5% by former conservative Prime Minister Rishi Snack during the pandemic, and will shrink to just 0.3% in 2027. This was made clear, so priorities were mentioned.
A decision to raid the aid budget, like an increase in UK defence spending itself, is likely to win the approval of Trump, who has begun to dismantle America’s own development program, USAID.
It was an incredible moment. Conservative “austerity prime minister” George Osborne maintained aid target of 0.7% throughout the year of budget destruction at the Treasury in the aftermath of the financial crash. The Prime Minister of Labor was currently taking an x on it.
Priority advocates that resources must be made available to achieve “peace through force” and post-Atlantic war, partially driven by Labour politicians Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin. He threw his status as a defence of reconciliation.
He said it was a “proud heritage,” but added that the task of preserving it was “not as light as it once was.”
Analysts increased from 2.3% of GDP to 2.5% of GDP to 2.5% and perhaps 3% in the next Parliament, which amounted to the biggest increase in UK defence spending since the end of the Second World We have confirmed the prioritization claim. war.
“The double commitment of 2.5% by 2027 and 3.0% by 2034 was the first defence spending since 1945,” said Malcolm Chalmers, assistant director of the Royal United Services Institute Think Tank. “It will be the most sustainable growth of the Ministry of Defense,” and will pass “the ability to make long-term plans and commitments.”
He added that “the spotlight will arise in Germany and France to see if they can rise to this common challenge as well” of taking over responsibility for the continent’s defense.
Starmer’s Move was welcomed by senior military and defense figures. He said it was delayed, but gives more room to Lord George Robertson, former NATO executive director, who leads the prime minister’s strategic defense and security review. Please report this spring.
Former national security adviser Peter Ricketts said the increase in spending was, “If priorities lead, then with (French President Emmanuel) Macron, Europe’s response to Trump, and with the sudden upheaval of Europe’s security he created. It’s essential.”
He said his most important priority was to re-equip the British Army, which is “a decade behind in investment,” and was last overhauled for deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, and “can be used in Europe.” “It’s going to be.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Tory leader Kemi Badenok asked the government to “reuse” the aid budget to raise “at least in the short term” and suggested that some welfare spending could also be rebuilt. did.
In her speech at the London-based policy exchange think tank, she supported the priorities by “making difficult decisions” to increase defence spending.
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The current aid target of 0.5% of gross national income is vulnerable to further reductions as senior diplomats and former Mandarins raise concerns that future spending reviews are likely to be narrowed down is considered to be.
The move sparked outrage from already important campaigners that more than a quarter of the UK’s aid budget is spent on aid to asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. The priority said the goal was to reduce the asylum bill.
Romilly Greenhill, chief executive of Bond, the British network of NGOs, was hit by “a gruesome move of myopia by both the PM and the Treasury.” “We weaken our own national security interests.”
However, some British diplomats have personally supported Starme’s move. “It is highly doubtful whether maintaining assistance with any number is the best option,” one said.
