Labour has massively increased its arms spending since taking office. It has continued the Tory pro-war policies in Ukraine, is unashamedly pro-NATO and refuses to severe ties with Israel regardless of the genocide occurring in Gaza. It has tethered itself so desperately to Trump that Starmer has taken the lead among NATO leaders in pushing for huge military spending hikes. The new Labour government’s strategic defence review was published early in its term in order to justify gross increases in military spending to 2.5% of GDP over the next few years, and to 3% in the next parliament.
Stop the War’s new pamphlet, Welfare not Warfare: the real cost of defence spending outlines the political choices Starmer’s Labour government is making. It reveals how much is being spent on missiles while the NHS faces chronic staff shortages. It explains how house building could be turbocharged and how investment in our children’s education and future could be restored with just a fraction of the money spent on arms and the military.
Click here to purchase your copy today for just £1.
Since the publication of the pamphlet, and only a few weeks after the publication of Labour’s own Strategic Defence Review, Starmer committed even more of tax payers’ money to the military in response to Trump’s demand that NATO increase spending to 5% of GDP.
Now the government has announced an astonishing initial increase in military spending to 4.1% of GDP by 2027, followed by a further increase to meet Trump’s desired 5% by 2035. Simultaneously the government confirmed swathing cuts to welfare payments and almost all government departments (except of course the MoD).
Read about the how these vast sums of money could be better spent, how the welfare cuts we are told are essential to ‘balance the books’ are entirely a political choice.