UK must prepare for ‘wartime scenario’ on home soil, security review warns

The UK needs to ‘actively prepare’ for potential direct attacks on home soil, a major government security review warns.

Growing tensions in regions from the Middle East to the India-Pakistan and Ukraine-Russia borders require a ‘major cultural shift’ from the government, according to the National Security Strategy (NSS) published today.

It says: ‘Significant escalation in any of these theatres would have a profoundly negative impact on our energy security, the cost of living and our ability to grow our economy.’

Written by John Bew, a historian who served as chief Foreign Policy Advisor to several British Prime Ministers, the report sets out plans for facing the challenges posed by an increasingly unstable world.

At its heart is the decision announced by Sir Keir Starmer today, to further boost the UK’s spending on national security over the next ten years until it hits 5% of GDP.

His announcement came on the first full day of a Nato conference in the Netherlands, which focused on a renewed commitment to greater spending.

The PM described the move as a response to an ‘era of radical uncertainty’, saying: ‘This is an opportunity to deepen our commitment to Nato and drive greater investment in the nation’s wider security and resilience.’

That era of uncertainty is outlined in sobering detail in the strategy report.

It explains that some of the UK’s adversaries are ‘laying the foundations for future conflict’ by putting themselves in a position to ’cause major disruption to our energy and/or supply chains.’

The report says: ‘For the first time in many years, we have to actively prepare for the possibility of the UK homeland coming under direct threat, potentially in a wartime scenario.’

Additionally, it describes the potential challenges posed by the effects of climate change, including ‘potential ecosystem collapse’, ‘threats to human health’, and ‘competition for basic resources, including food and water’.

The UK may need to become more selfish in a world where there is a ‘more transactional approach on migration, defence, trade, energy, technology and raw materials’, the strategy adds.

It reads: ‘NSS 2025 therefore signals the need for a major cultural shift in government to help us navigate the new era in which we find ourselves.

‘We will need to be more unapologetic and systematic in pursuit of our national interests. These interests will be defined as the long-term security and social and economic wellbeing of the British people.’

The report was published shortly after a statement from Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden in the House of Commons, where he said the government needed to ‘face the facts as they are’.

He said: ‘Nato’s member countries meet at a time when the security situation is more in flux than at any time in a generation.

‘A time when Ukraine is in its fourth year of resisting Russia’s invasion, a time when we in Europe are being asked to do more to secure our own defences, a time when security can no longer be thought of just as the traditional realms of air, sea and land, but also of technology, of cyber, of the strength of our democratic society.

‘And as we’ve seen in recent days, it’s been a time of renewed military action in the Middle East, with Israel and the United States acting to try to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb.’

Questions remain about the funding of Starmer’s commitment to boost national security spending to 5% of GDP.

The government said that would be made up of 1.5% going towards general ‘resilience and security’ and 3.5% towards specific defence, an increase of 0.5% from a commitment the PM made in February.

Achieving that ambition could require heavy cuts to other areas of government spending, and Starmer today said his government would not need to increase taxes to fund it.

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