The Prime Minister has told the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that the United Kingdom will publish its Defence Investment Plan ahead of next month’s alliance summit in Ankara, in a call that comes days after the resignations of his Defence Secretary and Armed Forces Minister over the funding behind that very plan, Downing Street has said.
According to a readout of the call, held on Saturday morning, Sir Keir Starmer updated Rutte on plans for the Defence Investment Plan and underlined his commitment to publish it before the summit. The two men agreed that in the face of shared and evolving threats, allies must step up together, strengthening collective defence and delivering more, faster, with the NATO Secretary General welcoming the United Kingdom’s increased investment in defence as an important contribution to the alliance and to meeting the threats it faces.
The Prime Minister also reiterated his commitment to reaching three per cent of GDP on defence in the next Parliament, Downing Street said, making clear that national security would remain the government’s top priority, backed by what the readout called the hard-edged decisions needed to deliver it. The two agreed to stay in close contact.
The phrase will draw attention given the events of the past week, with the outgoing Defence Secretary John Healey having resigned on Thursday after telling the Prime Minister the settlement behind the plan was backloaded, would reach just 2.68 per cent of GDP by 2030, and would force decisions that could make the country less safe. The Armed Forces Minister Al Carns quit hours later, writing that the plan was not built for the threat the country faces and was neither transformative enough nor sufficiently funded. Starmer used the same “hard-edged decisions” language in a television interview on Friday, language the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has since seized on in a letter contrasting it with the verdicts of the two ministers who resigned.
The commitment to publish before the summit pins the government to a firm deadline at a moment when industry bodies, the Commons Defence Committee and one of the Strategic Defence Review’s own authors have all warned that the plan, and the funding behind it, falls short of what the moment demands. The readout does not address whether the settlement Healey refused to sign will be revised before publication, leaving open the central question of whether the new Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis publishes the plan as drafted or reopens it.
The Defence Investment Plan is the programme-by-programme spending document intended to turn the Strategic Defence Review published last year into firm commitments on ships, aircraft, vehicles and munitions, and it has been promised repeatedly since the autumn. The NATO summit in Ankara, at which allied leaders are expected to take stock of progress towards the alliance’s new spending targets, now functions as the hard deadline against which the United Kingdom’s rearmament plans, and the political crisis surrounding them, will be measured.
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Doesn’t really matter when he publishes it now does it. We all know that it, like him, isn’t fit for purpose
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Utter bollocks.
Yea well, we all know that what the PM says and what he does tend to be 2 completely different things. So let’s wait and see.
Nauseating scum…..
“In the next Parliament….” how convenient.
How are the 5,000 cycle and walking routes for 4.5 Billion?
And you’ve no money.
Totally OT, but of interest, saw on X that we’ve bought some Tekever AR3 EVO, deployed to Estonia with 32, supplementing the widely reported Project Tiquila Drone purchase.
I seen the AR3’s on forces news, they look amazing with the VTOL set up.
They do mate.
All the money has been spent on welfare to bribe the voters to vote Labour. It is pathetic. Bread and circuses… what Gauls me is that he made big speeches about a government’s first duty is to defend the country and we need to prioritise defence sohe either lied or he is just incompetent. The sooner he is gone the better. It is obvious LaBour are saying a lot about tge next Parliament knowing that they will be out leaving the next government to clear up the mess. I think this will be the end of
Labour….
Good good. About time the uni parties were buried, they deserve nothing less.
Yes the 4.5 billion for paths was particularly blindingly fucked up in my opinion. …
4.5billion over 5 years from an existing budget. You are sounding like Angela Raynor mate. Don’t let your standards slip. You don’t have to like the PM. I don’t like him either. But he isn’t scum. The job of PM is demanding beyond most of us can fathom. 4 years ago most of us would have been pretty happy to see defence spending increase to 2.6%. Defence could get an extra 40bn and it wouldn’t be enough. Small wins. Spending is going up, and will continue to go up. No party. And I mean no party will either raise our taxes or vastly increase borrowing to pay for defence. The interest the Government has to pay on debt is ridiculous.
Thank you, mate. 😌
Entirely agree Robert. The PM is basically chairman of the board, with 18 spending department ministers around the cabinet table, each trying to do their best for their department, which in many cases are under-funded after years of austerity.
With the UK’s flat-lining economy, the fact that we are seeing the defence spend increase to 2.6% of GDP is pretty positive. Sure we need mote and Healey taking the honourable decision to resign may lead to a further uplift.
The core issue looks to be what happens after 2028/9? There is no further increase planned to get us up to 3% and then 3.5%. One could say that’s the next government’s problem. However, procurement needs a long-term funded plan, you can’t plan and build warships, SSBNs, GCAP fighters etc on a 4-year plan, not knowing what funding will or won’t be available thereafter.
This looks to be the breaking point for Healey. All political parties know that the necessary increase to get to 3.5% cannot come from government revenue, unless they take an axe to welfare spending – which a majority of the public will not support or vote for. The money will need to be raised by low-interest loans aka gilts. We can’t muscle in on the EU’s SAFE fund, which is financing a lot of the new kit being purchased by our EU neighbours. Canada is leading a similar fund, backed by a lot of banks, and this looks the best option for the UK.
But the Treasury won’t buy the concept, worried that increased borrowing might spook the bond markets. That is an erroneous view: the defence loans would be from the banks to manufacturing companies, the government would only underwrite them, so it is not really accurate to class that as public borrowing. There is also the wider question of how well the MOD handles its procurement, with an endless succession of projects that are miles over budget and a string of underperforming purchases, like Astute, T45, Ajax etc. The idea of just handing the MOD, in its present shape and form, a big lump of cash to do with what it will, doesn’t go down too well with politicians and civil servants who inevitably get the blame for the MOD’s screwups.
Yeah, agree pal. I can well understand the frustrations with the Treasury. But I can also understand the Treasurys frustration with the MOD. Everything is a political choice. And money is always available in a crisis. (Covid) But it needs a sustainable footing for the long term. Otherwise 3.5% is just a day dream. And it is serious cash they need to find to achieve that. I’m as frustrated as everyone else about defence. But we have keep a check on reality. It’s easy saying on these pages what the government should do, but none of us have the responsibility to deliver. And as you point out. All departments need more money.
If he is Chairman of the Board his principle role is directing policy. He is just too feeble to do it.
At this stage I just want the DiP published and out of the way, the national embarrassment and paralysis is worse than any cuts we are likely to see.
The only national embarassment is you constantly posting crap..
🤭
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A Bradypus, or Sloth, am I
I live a life of ease
Contented not to do or die
But idle as I please
I have three toes on either foot, Or half a doz. on both
With leaves and fruits, and shoots to eat
How sweet to be a Sloth
The world is such a cheerful place
When viewed from upside-down;
It makes a rise of every fall
A smile of every frown;
I watch the fleeting flutter by
Of butterfly or moth
And think of all the things I’d try
If I were not a Sloth
I could climb the very highest Himalayas
Be among the greatest ever tennis players
Win at chess or marry a Princess or
Study hard and be an eminent professor
I could be a millionaire, play the clarinet
Travel everywhere
Learn to cook, catch a crook
Win a war then write a book about it
I could paint a Mona Lisa
I could be another Caesar
Compose an oratorio that was sublime
The door’s not shut on my genius but
I just don’t have the time!
For days and days among the trees
I sleep and dream and doze
Just gently swaying in the breeze
Suspended by my toes
While eager beavers overhead
Rush through the undergrowth
I watch the clouds beneath my feet;
How sweet to be a Sloth
Really Starmer? I cannot wait to see you wilt in the face of what Trump and the other allies are going to say to you!
Even Chamberlain quietly started the rearmament of the Military. He made funding available that ensured British rearmament, including ordering Hurricanes and Spitfires, four-engine heavy bombers, radar, and more. Yet he is seen as the worst Prime Minister this country has ever seen.
It appears Starmer is going after that title!
He’s Not Even a Chamberlain.!.Which is as Damning a Sentence Anyone Can Say of A British Prime Minister….!
Risking our Country and our Military Personnel to Save his Own Skin….!
Ex-RM, Chamberlain, as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1931-1937), was possibly the most enthusiastic member of Stanley Baldwin’s Cabinet to rearm, especially from 1935, starting with the RAF. He chopped as much money to the Air Ministry as they required to rearm and thus funding for the Spitfire, Hurricane, Hampden bombers and Fighter Cammand’s radar system was approved. Without these efforts we might have fought the Battle of Britain in biplanes. On his elevation to the PM slot in May 1937, he knew that rearmament was for from complete and that war with Germany had to be avoided, hence appeasement with Hitler, whilst continuing with rearmament at pace and concluding defence agreements with France and Poland in March 1939.
GM,
Thanks, never before understood Chamberlain’s role in pre-war Britain. Certainly failed to realize that he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer during the initial phase of the rearmament of the nation. His name and reputation is synonymous w/ the appeasement of Munich on this side of the Pond. Always assumed that he was an entirely political creature, duly swept from the anals of history by the enormity of a World War. Now believe Munich may have been a desperate attempt to buy time for an unprepared Britain’s pre-war rearmament. Strange how history seldom repeats verbatim, but certainly retains echoes through time. Duly ashamed of my uninformed, uncharitable view of the man. A view that would have never been questioned/changed, absent new information. Amazing what one can learn lurking on this site. Thanks again for the history lesson. 🇬🇧👍👍😊
GM,
Upon further reflection of the last sentence of your post, do you note any disturbing parallels between the actions and history of 1939 and 2026? Here Hitler would certainly have thought twice, or even thrice, re war w/ a 1944-1945 confident and rearmed Britain; the 1939 version, not so much. Similarly, currently, Mad Vlad may be contemplating future events in the UKR, post eventual cease-fire, when France and the UK shoulder primary responsibility for peace-keeping and have not yet rearmed. Significantly disquieting thought. 🤔😱
Europe’s greatest strategic failure was not waiting until 1939 to stand up to Hitler. It was failing to stop him between 1936 and 1938 when Germany was still relatively weak and many of its own generals were prepared to remove him.
People often repeat that Britain and France were too weak to act. History does not support that argument. The reality is almost the opposite. In March 1936, Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland, directly violating the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. German forces entered with just 22,000 lightly armed troops and explicit orders to retreat immediately if France intervened. Hitler later admitted that the forty-eight hours after entering the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking of his life. Had the French Army mobilised and crossed the border, Germany would have withdrawn. The German Army was simply not ready for war. France possessed around 100 divisions on paper, one of the largest armies in Europe and overwhelming superiority against the small German force deployed in the Rhineland. Britain’s army was small, but its support was not essential at that stage. France alone had the military capability to force a German retreat.Nothing happened.
By 1937, Germany’s rearmament programme was accelerating, but it was still incomplete. Germany lacked sufficient ammunition stockpiles, fuel reserves and heavy equipment for a prolonged conflict. The Luftwaffe was growing rapidly, but many of its aircraft remained untested in large-scale operations. At the same time, the Royal Navy remained the world’s most powerful navy, capable of imposing a devastating blockade on Germany, something German military planners feared enormously. Britain’s industrial capacity also dwarfed Germany’s once fully mobilised.
Then came 1938, arguably the single greatest missed opportunity in modern European history. Hitler demanded the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. However, behind the scenes many senior German officers were preparing to overthrow him. General Ludwig Beck, Colonel Hans Oster, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, General Franz Halder and General Erwin von Witzleben believed Hitler was recklessly gambling Germany’s future. They had already begun planning a coup should Hitler order an invasion that brought Britain and France into the war. Their problem was simple. They needed Britain and France to stand firm. Germany’s military image in 1938 was largely a bluff. The Wehrmacht was still transitioning from a peacetime force into a modern army. Germany had fewer than 3,500 operational tanks, many of them Panzer I and Panzer II vehicles armed only with machine guns or light cannon. Ammunition stocks were limited and German economic planners warned that the nation lacked the resources for a prolonged continental war. Meanwhile, France remained exceptionally powerful. The French Army fielded more soldiers, more artillery and had one of the most sophisticated defensive systems in Europe.
What has never been addressed is why Czechoslovakia didn’t defend itself? It was no minor state either. It possessed around 35 well-equipped divisions, extensive mountain fortifications and one of Europe’s most advanced armaments industries, producing tanks, artillery and weapons that Germany would later seize and use. If Britain and France had declared that any invasion of Czechoslovakia would result in immediate military action, Germany would have faced three enormous problems simultaneously. Firstly, a difficult war against a heavily fortified Czechoslovakia. Secondly, the risk of a French offensive into western Germany. Thirdly, a coup from within its own military leadership.
Many historians believe Hitler would not have survived politically. The conspiracy to arrest or assassinate him already existed. The generals simply needed proof that his gamble had failed. Instead, Britain and France chose appeasement at Munich. Without firing a shot, Hitler acquired the Sudetenland, humiliated his opponents inside Germany and emerged as a national hero. Overnight, the military conspiracy collapsed. The consequences were immense. Germany inherited Czech border defences, factories, tanks and industrial output. By March 1939, after occupying the remainder of Czechoslovakia, Germany had become a far stronger military power than it had been only six months earlier.
The tragic irony is that Europe spent years convincing itself that Hitler was too strong to confront. His own generals thought precisely the opposite. The best opportunities to stop him were:
1936, remilitarisation of the Rhineland.
1938, the Sudetenland crisis, widely regarded by historians as the single best opportunity.
March 1939, the occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia, although by then Germany had become considerably stronger.
Would intervention have guaranteed permanent peace? No. Would it have prevented the Second World War as we know it? Many military historians believe the answer is yes. Europe had several chances to stop Hitler before 1939. It simply lacked the political will to do so. The tragedy is that Hitler’s own generals were waiting for Britain and France to provide the excuse to remove him. That excuse never came.
Chamberlain: “Yet he is seen as the worst Prime Minister this country has ever seen.”
I’m not sure that is still the case. Aside from the party partizan wish to point at whoever has most prominently led the ‘enemy’ party (which would bring a lot of votes for Thatcher and Blair) I think quite a lot of people would suggest Eden, Johnson & Truss. I’d put Cameron and the last years of Wilson in there too.
Chamberlain: “Yet he is seen as the worst Prime Minister this country has ever seen.”
I’m not sure that is still the case. Aside from the party partizan wish to point at whoever has most prominently led the ‘enemy’ party (which would bring a lot of votes for Thatcher and Blair) I think quite a lot of people would suggest Eden, Johnson & Truss. I’d put Cameron and the last years of Wilson in there too.
Consequences are what put Chamberlain in that spot. He failed to act, he appeased. Would Hitler got away with what he did with Thatcher or Blair? I dont think so.
If hw wants a summit why doesn’t he b….. off up the Himilayas
Lol… well It’s summit to ponder on I guess. 🤔😁
👍😊
Because the Rangers are there summiting Everest, so he’d have to talk to them.
Ah, didn’t know that. Cheers Dern.
BBC is reporting that Healey wanted the UK to join a multinational defence investment bank alongside Canada, Finland and the Netherlands in order to secure a long-term funding source on the returns from that bank, and then use that money to fund the DIP in its entirety. It’s being led by Mark Carney, who I dare say might just be the most economically literate NATO leader around at the moment.
Apparently, the Treasury declined to stump up the funding required to set that initiative up.
It seems Healey really did have some creative ideas for long-term funding. I reckon in a decade, as we’re trying to fund a fleet of submarines and simultaneously, that these kinds of creative solutions will be much missed.
Yes, £6 billion to join. They stuffed it up, just like they did with the EU fund.
Healey maybe a Dark Horse for Chancellor once All the Political Dust has Settled…?
And currently it Really is a Sand Storm…!
The fun bit will be at the NATO conference, if you go back and read The Hague agreement it isn’t just a commitment to get to 3.5% + 1.5% GDP spending by 2035 its a commitment to provide a plan as to how you are going to get there. The only exception to that is for Spain who just plain said no way !
The plan that has to be delivered has to be gradual incremental but not backloaded so that the plan looks like a “Hockey Stick”.
Given that just about every other member of NATO is pretty well on it, providing their plans and getting on with them quite how Starmer is going to get away with this is a mystery to me.
And then there the will be Mr Tango to deal with !
Anyone got any tickets ?
If “Straw Man” has any sense or a self preservation instinct he will regroup PDQ and make the necessary cuts to meet the NATO target. Forget the so called black hole in the budget as it’s irrelevant, the NATO target is the objective and it’s got be a plan to get to 3.5% of GDP by 2035 which is about an extra £3.8 Billion Pa for the next 8 years.
Cut the Net Zero budget and reduce the £100 Billion Pa the UK spends on importing Gas and Oil by opening up our own fields. Even producing 20% of that would pay for Defence in terms of Tax raised.
Breaking News….Zombie proto communist speaks. Other breaking news? Zombie proto communist talks shit.
You wouldn’t recognise communism if it smacked you in the face! Stramers a lot of things, most of them not good, but he’s nowhere close to being a communist! 🤡
Thanks for your reply Dick.
Foreign Leaders Would Do Well to Give This Man a Very Wide Berth .!..He Clearly has No intrest in European or Anyone Else’s Defence..!.Gaslighting them and us for 2 Years Spouting Bull…!
He Never Had Any plan or Intention of Reaching 3.5% by 2035! ….Doubt 3% Was Ever on His Cards….!
A little bit of Musical Chairs With the Defence Budget plus as little as He deemed he Could get away With..!.
His Current No1 Priority ?…Self Preservation .!
Not Even Sure How long UKRAINE can Rely on Him..?
So Healey saw the plan and resigned.
Jarvis has seen the plan and has accepted the job.
If the plan is finalised, why not publish it now?
Or do Jarvis’s latest comments mean the plan isnt yet final?
Apparently it seems that since Healey resigned, Gordon Brown has been dispatched to talk to the Canadians about options to move forward on the UK participating in the Defence Security and Resilience bank. It looks like it was one of the areas Healey really wanted to take forward and the dead hand of the treasury killed it..
ABCR,
Concerned the DIP PR issue could arise even sooner, the G7 mtg scheduled for this week. 😱 Perhaps good fortune will prevail and Starmer and Trump will not interact during the event. 🤞 (Perhaps the Canadians, French and Germans will run interference (or serve as targets of opportunity for POTUS.)
Excellent point re pathway/plan to 2035 NATO spending commitment. Significant difficulty reconciling the concepts of ever expanding UK geopolitical commitments, mated w/ inadequate defence funding. At some point, definitely wonder whether one or more of the CRINKs may be tempted to call the bluff, resulting in acute political embarrassment at the least, and perhaps more grievous material damage to the UK? Are there sufficient elements of the Labour party fundamentally so opposed to a policy of rearmament, short of the commencement of hostilities, that it would be a political improbability/impossibility to meaningfully execute an agreed NATO commitment during this Parliament (or the next)? If so, the Spanish option may prove to be viable. However, the UK would need to adopt a corresponding foreign policy. In any event, truly hope there will not be an irreparable NATO political rupture, not least because USAF absolutely requires an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the EA theater! 🤔🤞🤞
I wonder just how much of the DIP will be published. An awful lot of key and sensitive information will be given away to hostile ‘actors’ if all is published.
The 10 year equipment plans ( last one 2023) were incredibly detailed about programme timescales and costs. The practice originated when the coalition government discovered the massive shortfall in Labour’s funding in 2010. In addition, the NAO provides further detail when assessing the plan’s credibility.
Not sure how wise this is but the US publishes similar information, with the GAO scrutinizing it publicly.
Well it became it became official last week, Starmer and Reeves have no interest in the defence and security of the UK. Their top priority is is using every penny they borrow or tax to maximising social benefits, boost civil service pensions and salaries and save the planet” with net zero. They are gambling that in a showdown, likes of the USA, Germany, France and Poland will ultimately save the UK’s skin. Recently I have been watching old 1938-1940 YouTube video’s of contemporary radio commentaries following the appeasement of Hitler through to the fall of France. Fascinating stuff and at times you only have to change a few names and it could a BBC News report today. But no Churchill … yet.