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Sir Keir Starmer has announced plans to increase British defence spending from 2.3 per cent of national income to 2.5 per cent by 2027, claiming that it was vital to counter the “menace” of Russia.
Starmer told a hushed House of Commons that the extra spending in this parliament would be fully funded by a cut to Britain’s overseas aid budget, admitting the country faced “extremely difficult and painful choices”.
The UK prime minister also set out a longer term ambition to spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence “in the next parliament”, as he prepared to hold talks this week with US President Donald Trump.
Starmer wants to convince Trump that Europe has the will to beef up its own defences, as he seeks to persuade the US to maintain its security guarantee over Europe, including Ukraine.
The Labour leader told MPs on Tuesday that the extra investment would be the “biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war”.
Unlike Trump, Starmer was clear about the provenance of the threat he was seeking to deter: “Russia is a menace in our waters, in our airspace and on our streets.”
“We must change our national security posture, because a generational challenge requires a generational response.”
He announced the increased military spending would be funded entirely by reducing the UK’s aid budget from 0.5 per cent of gross national income to 0.3 per cent over the next two years — echoing the Trump administration’s move to dismantle the US Agency for International Development.
Starmer also set out an ambition to raise defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP “subject to economic and fiscal conditions” during the next parliament — which is expected to run from roughly 2029 to 2034.
The prime minister has long faced calls to spell out when Labour would meet its manifesto commitment to increase defence expenditure from its current level of 2.3 per cent to 2.5 per cent.
The increase in the military budget will cost between £5bn and £6bn a year from 2027 — equivalent to about 10 per cent of the core schools budget in England.
Pressure has ratcheted up in recent weeks after Trump set out his intention to secure a rapid ceasefire in the Ukraine war, and cast doubt over his appetite to continue supplying significant US military support to Europe.
UK military chiefs have privately pushed for the British defence budget to rise further to 2.65 per cent of GDP, which would be £10bn more each year than the current budget.
Starmer said defence spending would rise to 2.6 per cent of GDP after 2027, if expenditure on the UK’s intelligence agencies were included.
Earlier on Tuesday, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called on the government to “repurpose” the aid budget to fund a rise in defence expenditure, and said that spending 2.5 per cent by the end of the decade was “now no longer enough”.
She said in a speech at the London-based Policy Exchange think-tank that she would back Starmer in “taking difficult decisions” to increase defence spending.
Campaigners criticised Starmer’s decision to slash the aid budget to fund the increased defence spending.
Romilly Greenhill, chief executive of Bond, the UK network for NGOs, called the decision “short-sighted and appalling” and said it would have “devastating consequences for millions of marginalised people worldwide” and “weaken our own national security interests”.
The UK aid budget was set at 0.7 per cent of gross national income under former Tory prime minister David Cameron, but reduced to 0.5 per cent by then-chancellor Rishi Sunak during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sunak, who was later prime minister, had promised to restore it to the higher rate when “fiscal circumstances allowed”.