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Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are facing a growing cabinet revolt over a lack of defense spending. I I understand.
The Prime Minister and Prime Minister said years of underfunding and shortages of equipment and personnel have left Britain’s military under severe strain, amid growing concerns that the conflict in Europe could spread beyond Ukraine and other global threats. Many ministers have warned that they are being exposed to .
Two ministers revealed their secrets at the weekend, calling for a “significant pace” of defense spending after the Chancellor failed to announce further spending in last week’s Budget.
Security Secretary Tom Tugendhat and Foreign Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, attending the cabinet meeting, said the UK needed to “lead the way” in meeting the government’s target of 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP). Ta.
Their concerns have been echoed privately by other ministers. I Those who have been warning of the weaknesses in Britain’s defenses have spoken.
Separately, Defense Secretary Grant Shapps sent a letter to Mr Hunt in preparation for the Budget, pinning next year’s military spending at 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), up from around 2.2% currently. I asked him to pull it up.
This was rejected by the Prime Minister, who used his own statement to reiterate the government’s ambition to reach 2.5% “as soon as economic conditions permit”.
A source close to Mr Shapps said on Sunday that he still wanted to increase defense spending, but that he would not be “shouting from the sidelines” because he also believed in the responsibility of the Cabinet.
But other ministers have privately expressed concerns.
No10 claimed that a joint article posted on Mr Trevelyan and Mr Tugendhat’s LinkedIn page on Friday was consistent with the government’s policy to raise defense spending to 2.5% as soon as possible.
This article was not previously cleared with Downing Street. I That’s understandable, since social media posts don’t require prior approval.
Government sources claimed that the Conservative Party was united in the belief that defense spending was important, with spending in real terms at £50 billion a year, a record high. The UK is the second-highest spender in NATO, after the US, and the highest spender in Europe.
But a shocking report by the Public Accounts Committee last week revealed that despite these figures, funding for equipment for the UK military remains inadequate.
The House of Commons spending watchdog has warned that the Ministry of Defense does not have a “credible plan” to fund the military the government wants, leaving Britain increasingly reliant on its allies.
Trevelyan and Tugendhat state in their article:
“To protect ourselves, we need investment. And effective investment means that our industrial complex must grow and strengthen at a much faster pace than it currently does.
“We cannot deploy complex platforms and weapons that will secure military superiority overnight. We must start growing that now, supporting our allies, and investing at a pace that keeps us ahead of our adversaries.” It won’t.”
Trevelyan and Tugendhat, both ministers for the Indo-Pacific, said they were concerned about the level of defense spending needed to respond to China’s increasingly assertive global role.
“China announced this week that it will increase its defense spending by another 7.2% this year to $230 billion, more than double what it was a decade ago.
“Russia has pledged to spend 40% of its spending on defense and security this year. Huge sums of money by any standards have been paid to fight an illegal war in Ukraine,” they said. said.
“In contrast, the US defense budget this year is $842 billion, an increase of less than 50% over the same period. And the UK defense budget has increased from £43 billion to £55 billion, an increase of only a small percentage. It was 28%.”
He added: “It is clear that the UK needs to take the lead in increasing its domestic defense and security spending commitments to above 2.5%.”
“Former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushed to expand the defense budget after years of real contraction, but that only filled the hole. Now we need growth. I need it.”
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Mr Sunak said: “I would like to highlight my time as Prime Minister when I oversaw the largest increase in the defense budget since the end of the Cold War, at £24 billion.
“The important thing is that we recognize that the world we live in is becoming more dangerous, and we need to invest more to protect our countries from it.”