The Prime Minister’s announcement of increased defence spending signals a turn towards militarism
~ Stanton Cree ~
Keir Starmer has announced a raise in UK defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP, signalling the beginning of “the largest UK arms race since the end of the Second World War”. This means a real increase of 6 billion pounds in defence spending for the United Kingdom, with the additional goal of reaching 3% of GDP “by the next Parliament”.
The increase would place the UK as the 7th highest per capita spender on defence in NATO, behind the US, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece and Poland. The Baltic States have lived in imminent fear of assault by Russia since its launch of a full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022.
The Prime Minister, who is shortly due to meet with US President Donald Trump , has seemingly rolled over to the demand that NATO countries increase their defence spending target from 2% to 5% GDP minimum. In a further show of submission, Starmer has followed Trump’s lead, saying his 6 billion pound increase will come from reductions in UK international aid spending—a fund that the Labour Party has defended as a key part of working towards a “world free from poverty on a liveable planet”.
Starmer’s announcement is the latest move in an increasingly militarised narrative concerning the future security of Europe. This has been greatly accelerated as the Trump administration has expedited the United States’ pivot away from its traditional role of maintaining its imperialist hegemony by supplying its European client states with materiel.
This move away from so-called “Pax Americana” towards a supposedly more “isolationist” policy seeks to solidify US control closer to home, with the President continuing to call for direct control of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. Despite Trump’s well-aired imperialist desire to carve the world into zones of influence controlled by Russia, China and the US, his recent actions have seemingly taken Europe by surprise.
Already on 12 February Trump announced negotiations with Russia in absentia of Ukraine and went on to echo Russian propaganda points. He blamed Ukraine for the invasion, branded the bog-standard neo-liberal Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator, and called for immediate elections.
While both Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron continue to sweet talk Trump, this new geo-political reality sees Europe pushing to create a new defence infrastructure that hopes to survive without US support. This was made clear by German Christian Democratic Union leader, Friedrech Merz, who used his victory speech to talk about achieving “independence from the US”, stating it was “largely indifferent” to the fate of Europe.
Another major proposal comes from the former head of the British Armed Forces, Nick Carter, who has suggested a Rearmament Bank modelled on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. While the latter was a cornerstone of the Western capitalist appropriation of former Soviet-aligned countries, the Rearmament Bank would instead allow countries to accelerate their military spending without affecting their balance sheets.
Poland’s Finance Minister, Andrzej Domański, (whose country is currently the highest spending NATO country, at almost 4% of its GDP) has stated that “without Great Britain, the defence of Europe would be difficult to imagine”, and Starmer has shown himself more than willing to step into this role.
Having already committed British troops to the Ukraine/Russia border as “peacekeepers”, and given the continuous moaning of the British military establishment about the supposed lack of preparedness, we can only assume that these preparations for rearmament will be followed by a recruitment drive. With this turn towards a more militarised society only just beginning, it’s time we put our anti-militarist principles into practice.
Photo: Keir Starmer on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
