They’re Lying to You About the ‘Defence’ Budget

Owen Jones debunks the case for spending more money on defence: The UK wastes money on the most overseas-oriented military in Europe, making it more likely to start wars abroad and less safe at home.

The UK spends vast sums on military hardware, such as the Chinook helicopter: ‘The alternative is not to abandon defence. It is to take the word seriously.’ Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt, AMA/Getty Images

Britain must spend vastly more on its military – and our social provision must foot the bill. That is the deafening refrain from our political, media and military establishment.

There has been “14 years of our armed forces being hollowed out and underfunded”, declares John Healey, now our chancellor of the Exchequer. Back in June, he resigned as defence secretary, arguing that then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Defence Investment Plan was “falling well short of what is required”.

Then there’s the chief of the defence staff, Sir Richard Knighton, who declared: “We need to end the hollowing out of our armed forces.” Or indeed the open letter signed by former defence secretaries, retired military officers and the former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove, claiming that the armed forces had been “hollowed out by years of chronic underfunding” and demanding that spending reach 5% of GDP.

Nor is there much mystery about who is expected to pay.