Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s U.K. government is facing a test of its commitment to European security and the United Kingdom’s special relationship with the United States.
The test is expensive, coming in at $38 billion.
Both the Sun and the Times newspapers reported that Gen. Richard Knighton, the U.K.’s equivalent of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the government that there is a $38 billion gap between pledged defense funding over the next four years and what is needed to deliver on pledged capabilities. The gap is said to flow largely from inflation and cost overruns. The Times reported that Starmer is “deeply unhappy” with the spending gap and that the British Army is likely to bear the brunt of capability cuts to balance the budget sheets.
That would be unacceptable.
As the Washington Examiner has reported, the head of the British Army is advancing a bold plan to maximize his force’s potency at NATO’s leading edge. Operational evolution of this kind is critical to bolstering NATO’s eastern flank, deterring Russian President Vladimir Putin, and relieving pressure on the U.S. military to bear the outsize burden of any future war with Russia. Still, Gen. Roly Walker’s plan relies upon at least a minimum degree of investment. If the $38 billion deficit is not resolved, the already significantly shrunken British Army will be able to play only a subsidiary role in any future defense of NATO.
This is thus a big test for Starmer. The prime minister has built a close working relationship with President Donald Trump, no easy task for a center-left Labour Party leader who has very little in common with the American president. Starmer deserves credit for keeping the special relationship on an even keel, even amid significant disagreements on matters such as the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and U.K. regulations surrounding free speech. But he will seriously undermine the special relationship if he is unwilling to do what Poland, Germany, and other European allies are doing and invest in Europe’s security.
The U.S.-U.K. intelligence communities are extraordinarily close, especially in terms of the two countries’ respective signals intelligence services, the NSA and GCHQ. But military capabilities serve as the ultimate source and sustaining energy of the special relationship. And it’s clear that Starmer thinks he can resolve this challenge on the cheap.
The retired British Army general who led Starmer’s defense review preceding relatively small defense spending increases last year told the Sun that the government was “choosing not to respond to the risks. It is not that the government doesn’t understand. It understands perfectly well. It is that voters are saying we are not worried about this.”
“We are choosing not to respond to the risks as we see them, because we want to spend the money on other things,” he added.
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Starmer needs to grasp the mantle of leadership. He has already pushed through massive tax hikes, so the matter is not one of revenue. Instead, recognizing the security crisis in Europe and the need for the U.K. to invest in the lethality that serves as the special relationship’s ultimate backstop, Starmer should cut his country’s bloated welfare budget and redirect funding to the military.
If not, he should not be surprised if German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a big defense spender, finds himself as Trump’s favored new leader in Europe.