British PM Starmer plots higher defence spending in bid to save his job

LONDON – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has resolved to hike Britain’s defence spending faster than current plans propose, hoping that a focus on security at a time of escalating conflict can fend off the prospect of a leadership challenge in May.

The mechanics of how and when to further raise military spending have been the subject of high-level government talks in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter, with 10 Downing Street indicating it will press ahead with a faster increase.

While a decision has been all-but taken, the details still need to be worked out, one of the people said.

The Treasury maintains that any major increase would require tax hikes or spending cuts, stressing there can be no breach to its fiscal rules which limit borrowing, several of the people said.

They were all granted anonymity disclosing policy deliberations that have not been made public.

Officials expect a much-awaited defence investment plan to be published in late May.

The UK’s military spending has fallen behind allies such as Germany and it now has the smallest army in Europe relative to its workforce, other than Luxembourg, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The government has set out an ambition to lift core defence spending to 3.5 per cent of economic output by 2035, but has offered little detail on the path to that goal beyond 2027.

The Iran war has also exposed Britain’s under-powered Navy and air defence capabilities.

A drone was able to hit its base in Cyprus early in the conflict, and just one warship was available to be sent to the region to bolster its defences.

Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch said on April 8 that Mr Starmer was “all mouth and no trousers” on defence, arguing he had “no plan for rearming Britain” and calling delays to the defence investment plan “a national scandal.”

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has called for defence spending to rise and said Britain should seek its own sovereign nuclear deterrent independent from the US.

Mr Starmer could fight back by making a premiership-defining decision on defence spending, one government official said, answering critics who say he doesn’t offer bold leadership and giving a legacy to a prime minister who has struggled to convey a purpose.

In 20 years Britain could look back at this as the moment the UK became serious on defence again after years of underfunding, they added.

The war in Iran will “define us for a generation,” the Prime Minister said this week during a tour of Gulf allies.

Mr Starmer was referring to Britain’s response to the Middle East crisis, but could just as easily have been talking about his own political career and legacy.

Discussions over hikes to defence spending took place amid the fallout of President Donald Trump’s war on Iran and his renewed criticism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Yet they also form part of an emerging political strategy in No. 10 to survive a set of local elections on May 7 in which the governing Labour Party is expected to take heavy losses.

After a series of political crises sparked speculation Mr Starmer could be removed from office in May – from a scandal over his US envoy Peter Mandelson’s links to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to the exit of his top aide Morgan McSweeney – No. 10 has arrived at a plan to pitch his leadership around Britain’s security in response to the Iran war.

Mr Starmer met other leaders in the Persian Gulf this week to discuss defence coordination against the threat from Tehran and a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

His messaging of late has centred on economic security, including closer ties with the European Union, as well as energy security and defense and national security.

His words were followed by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper telling a City of London audience on April 9 that the government would be “putting security, both national security and economic security, much more centrally at the heart of our approach.”

Defence Secretary John Healey then told a conference on April 10 that Britain was “in a new era of defence because of this new era of threat,” adding that it “demands an immediate response.”

It would not be possible to adequately respond to the events of recent weeks and meet that new rhetoric without increasing defence spending, multiple government officials said, particularly in light of less support from Mr Trump’s America.

Labour strategists said there was also a political advantage to focusing on security and the national interest as it plays to one of Mr Starmer’s perceived strengths amid his dire personal opinion poll ratings, and allows him to double down on his criticisms of Green Party leader Zack Polanski and Reform UK’s Nigel Farage as unpatriotic over their positions on NATO and Russia respectively.

Nonetheless, a strategy based on defence and security may disappoint some Labour Members of Parliament who had wanted the government to pivot to the left in response to negative polls and doubts over a centrist agenda linked to former aide Mr McSweeney. 

The hundreds of Labour MPs elected in 2024 hoped the government would use its power to save Britain’s public services after years of Conservative rule, while bolstering workers’ rights and other left-wing causes.

Few saw themselves voting for more missiles and fighter jets.

One MP said Mr Starmer’s move, therefore, would do little to dissuade those in the party who want to remove him.

Still, another MP argued a defence spending rise would provide a challenge to Mr Starmer’s internal rivals, who would have to answer whether they’d endorse his policy or keep defence spending at a lower level.

It was never likely Mr Starmer would simply adopt a left-wing agenda and he always intended to strike a balance between different sides of the Labour party, a person close to him said, citing his ongoing commitments to tough policies on immigration and fiscal prudence in addition to more liberal stances on Europe, child poverty and net zero.

Even on the latter, and without Mr McSweeney by his side, the premier this week indicated he was not opposed to granting more licences for drilling at the Rosebank oil field to the north of Scotland.

A stronger defence policy may go some way to dispel the repeated criticism from Mr Trump in recent weeks.

Provoked by Mr Starmer’s opposition to his operation in Iran, Mr Trump said the British premier is “no Winston Churchill” and implied he is more like Neville Chamberlain, Churchill’s predecessor whose name is synonymous – fairly or not – with appeasement of Adolf Hitler.

Often forgotten amid the criticism of Chamberlain is his policy of rearmament, with some historians crediting him with rebuilding Britain’s defences in time for the Second World War.

Mr Starmer appears to have decided it’s fallen on him to rearm Britain to counter the present day’s threats. BLOOMBERG