Starmer’s military advisers accuse him of ‘corrosive complacency’

Sir Keir Starmer’s own military advisers have warned that his “corrosive complacency” on defence is putting Britain in peril.

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and Sir Richard Barrons, two of the three authors of Sir Keir’s strategic defence review (SDR), spoke out on Tuesday to accuse him of leaving the UK vulnerable.

The war in Iran has raised fears about Britain’s readiness for conflict, with the Prime Minister criticised for his sluggish response to the crisis facing the Armed Forces.

Sir Keir has failed to say how the Government will meet its pledge to spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence, and his defence investment plan – promised six months ago – has still not been published.

Britain’s military capabilities have been mocked by the US, with Donald Trump calling British aircraft carriers “toys”. Pete Hegseth, Mr Trump’s secretary of defence, also sarcastically criticised the “big, bad Royal Navy”.

Gap between rhetoric and action

Lord Robertson, the former Nato secretary-general who served as a defence secretary under Sir Tony Blair, will make his criticisms in Salisbury on Tuesday, in a lecture which has been seen by the Financial Times.

He is expected to highlight a gap between Sir Keir’s rhetoric and action on defence, saying: “There is a corrosive complacency today in Britain’s political leadership.

“Lip service is paid to the risks, the threats, the bright red signals of danger – but even a promised national conversation about defence can’t be started.”

Lord Robertson will add: “We are underprepared. We are under-insured. We are under attack. We are not safe... Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.”

The Labour peer will accuse “non-military experts” in the Treasury of economic vandalism, adding: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”

Last week, an exclusive poll for The Telegraph asked voters whether they would prefer to spend more money on benefits or the defence budget.

The question produced near-equal splits in all three nations, with defence spending narrowly winning in England, and welfare narrowly winning in Scotland and Wales.

Lord Robertson’s intervention is one of the most serious rebukes of Sir Keir by a Labour politician to date. It is made more significant by the fact that the peer was working constructively and privately but has now run out of patience.

His review pushed for higher spending. It found that the UK would need to spend about £68bn to prepare its Armed Forces for modern warfare and recommended an uplift in the number of soldiers to 100,000, including reservists.

However, its recommendations have stalled within Whitehall, and Labour’s own defence investment plan remains unpublished, because of wrangling between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Treasury.

‘I hung my head in sorrow’

On Tuesday morning, Sir Richard, the retired Army general who led Joint Forces Command and co-wrote the SDR, echoed the criticisms of Sir Keir.

Sir Richard, who was one of six chiefs of staff leading the Armed Forces between 2013 and 2016 and served in the Army for more than four decades, said he could not disagree with Mr Hegseth’s disparaging comments on the state of the Navy.

Asked about Mr Hegseth’s remarks, Sir Richard told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I hung my head in sorrow but I couldn’t argue with him because although the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Army are in their bones outstanding institutions, they are simply too small and too undernourished to deal with the world that we now live in.

“And the review says this and the review charted a course of not just revitalisation but transformation for war in the 21st century. So all the ideas are there.”

Asked whether he shared Lord Robertson’s concerns, Sir Richard added: “I completely share them. He and I have been saying this through the review and since the review was published.

“But I think it’s a mark of how serious it is that someone who has been a Labour Party activist for more than 60 years and was a Nato secretary-general has now had to say it in these terms today.”

Sir Richard said there was an “enormous gap” between Sir Keir’s current plan for defence and the levels of spending and resources needed in a dangerous world.

He warned the Prime Minister that he must deal urgently with a £28bn black hole in the defence budget, and said his failure to release the defence investment plan last autumn was a problem.

He added: “The choice that’s on the Prime Minister’s desk is he either finds more money to implement this, in my view, de minimis review at the speed we agreed last year, or he’s going to announce £28bn worth of cuts.”

Army and Navy under strain

The Army is at its smallest for 200 years, with roughly 72,000 soldiers, and the Navy faces a shortage of ships.

The most visible sign of strain on the Navy has been HMS Dragon’s delayed deployment to Cyprus, where Britain’s sovereign base came under attack from Iran-linked proxies.

The warship took three weeks to arrive in the region, and then returned to port in the eastern Mediterranean last week after experiencing problems with her water supply.

Since the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government’s strategic defence and security review in 2010, Navy chiefs have been told to aim to maintain 19 ships, comprising 13 frigates and six destroyers.

The Navy is, however, undershooting even that pared-back target, boasting just seven frigates and six destroyers – a shortage of six ships.

Military chiefs had hoped that Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, would provide the MoD with an additional settlement on top of the uplift to 2.6 per cent of GDP by April 2027.

However, in February Ms Reeves ruled out an increase in defence spending this year. John Healey, the Defence Secretary, has also failed to set out a timetable for any additional spending.

The Government has promised defence spending will hit 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, 3 per cent in the early 2030s and 3.5 per cent by 2035. However, Sir Keir has failed to specify when the 3 per cent target will be met.

The Conservatives have demanded that the Government reach 3 per cent by the end of the current Parliament, calling on Sir Keir to cut the rising benefits bill to achieve this.

Badenoch: I completely agree

Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, said she “completely agreed” with Lord Robertson. She added: “The former Labour minister who wrote Keir Starmer’s SDR has accused the PM of ‘corrosive complacency’... I completely agree.

“It was exactly what I told Starmer in Parliament yesterday and said in my speech to defence experts at the weekend. We need to get serious. The Conservatives would restore the two-child benefit cap and repurpose funds from net zero projects to invest in our military.

“Meanwhile the Government have no plan and, as Lord Robertson points out, Rachel Reeves had only 40 words on defence in her Budget and none in the Spring Statement. You can’t trust Labour on defence.”

Meanwhile, a second former Labour defence secretary told Sir Keir “the time for words is definitely over” and that refusing to raise spending would be a “terrible indictment”.

Lord Hutton of Furness, who served as defence secretary under Gordon Brown, said he agreed with “everything” Lord Robertson had to say.

He told LBC: “We’ve had a lot of really positive words from ministers, from the Prime Minister, from the Defence Secretary, but unfortunately words don’t equip the Air Force, the Army and the Navy, with the kit and equipment they need after a decade or more of hollowing out.”

Warning of a “really important wake up call moment”, he added: “The Government should already have set out a plan for how they’re going to improve and increase the capability of our Armed Forces. They haven’t done that.”

Lord Hutton concluded: “The time now is to see concrete results, that sees the size of the Army grow, its equipment and capabilities grow, same with the Army and the Navy…

“We need a really clear, positive commitment from both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to do something about this because it will be a terrible indictment of the Labour Government if it continues to prevaricate and not commit the resources that we need now.”

Challenged on the criticisms by Lord Robertson, Karin Smyth, a health minister, said she “understands the frustration” but insisted that the defence plan was “coming”.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]