After warning that the UK must be prepared for a real-world attack by Russia, leading experts have warned that not enough is being done to deter Vladimir Putin.
The Strategic Defence Review, released yesterday, recommended sweeping changes, including a focus on new technology and reaching 3% GDP defence spending.
Presenting the review, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: ‘We will never gamble with our national security’.
However, Dr Simon Bennett from the University of Leicester School of Business has suggested that’s exactly what Starmer has done.
He says it suggests the UK is ‘sleepwalking into a bloody ambush from which it may not emerge sovereign and free’.
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He told Metro: ‘As Germany reminded us last week, Russia poses an existential threat to Europe. Poland, one of the countries in Moscow’s sights, will this year spend 4.7% of its GDP on defence.’
Starmer’s refusal to set a deadline on his commitment to spend 3% of GDP on defence only ‘emboldens Putin’, Dr Bennett said. ‘There is no sense that we have developed a war mentality or that we intend to develop a war economy.’
Chatham House Russian expert Keir Giles agrees.
Starmer’s hesitation to set a deadline for defence spending not only emboldens Putin but also the United States, which has repeatedly raised concerns about other NATO countries not meeting their spending requirements on defence.
Mr Giles said: ‘When the NATO summit at the Hague happens again, the UK will be an outlier in terms of the commitment to funding defence.
‘Starmer has refused to say that he will set a deadline at all. There are words about the defence spending being subject to fiscal and economic conditions, so once again, the UK is dragging their feet in terms of power.
‘They’re unwilling to put their money where their mouth is.’
Over the weekend, Defence Secretary John Healey said there is no doubt UK defence spending will rise to 3% of GDP by 2034.
He said: ‘The Prime Minister said he’s 100% confident that this 3% can be delivered. I’ve got no doubt that we can deliver that. It can be fully delivered. It’s a vision for the next 10 years… this is the way we strengthen our armed forces, and it’s the way that we make the British people safer.’
But Dr Bennett does not think this is enough. He said: ‘If we don’t immediately increase defence spending to 4% of GDP, this country may not be around in 2034.’
Dr Bennett said those in Westminster who believe the UK can avoid a war should read Winston Churchill’s observation from 1929 in the aftermath of the First World War.
He wrote: ‘The story of the human race is War. Except for brief and precarious interludes, there has never been peace in the world; and before history began, murderous strife was universal and unending.’
Mr Giles added that although the defence review lays out challenges facing the UK and shares ‘ambitious’ plans to overhaul the system, fundamental questions remain.
He said: ‘How will it be implemented and how will it be paid for? Not raising defence spending to 3% long term is in conflict with some of the assumptions made by the review team – namely, that this funding is going to materialise.
‘But this all depends on the willingness of the current Labour government to grip the problem of defence.’
A portion of the defence review focuses on raising ‘civil awareness and resilience’, which is a positive, Mr Giles believes.
He said: ‘It seems they’ve recognised that there is a fundamental mission of educating Britain’s public and its voters as to the threats facing them and other UK institutions.
‘But this comes after decades of failure by the government to not only explain that the fundamental rights and freedoms and prosperity that the UK enjoys are under threat, but also that they are worth defending.’
What Russian threats are facing the UK?
Russia sees the UK as a primary adversary, particularly both historically and more recently, because of its leading role in galvanising support for Ukraine.
The UK has made strides towards addressing ongoing Russian influence, including establishing the National Security Act 2023, which was set up to protect the UK from ‘espionage, interference in the political system, sabotage, and assassination.’
The issue of Russian meddling in UK politics has been raised in Parliament multiple times in the past two decades – but the experts say the true extent of Russian interference on British soil hasn’t been made clear to the public.
Westminster whistle-blower Sergei Cristo has spent years trying to warn the UK about the ongoing threat to their democracy from Russian actors, and previously told to Metro: ‘It’s up to parliament to decide what the priorities are and what the fundamental threats to democracy are.
‘But for them to do that, we need to know where the threats have come from and in what form.’
Metro has contacted Downing Street for comment.
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