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Sir Keir Starmer must go “further and faster” on defence spending as Britain faces "significant threats at our door”, a Labour peer has told LBC.
Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr, Baroness Cathy Ashton called on the Prime Minister to press ahead with raising defence spending amid the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
She said there is a “general sense of a world that is unstable”, and it is no longer enough to blame the previous Government for not doing more as the death toll in conflicts around the world piles up.
“When you look at the situation both in Ukraine, what's now happening in the Middle East, and this general sense of a world that is unstable, it's really important that we go further and faster,” she told Andrew.
Baroness Ashton added: “I think the Prime Minister would probably agree with that because he's made quite a thing… about taking on the responsibility of defence spending.
“Fourteen years, he would argue, the previous government was not doing enough. But I think anyone really now considering it very deeply, would be saying, actually we need to come clean, this needs to go further and faster,” she told Andrew.
She also called on Sir Keir to lay out a vision for the UK while avoiding frightening people about the threats the country faces.
“It's not about saying ‘you should be very scared’. It's about saying ‘let's be realistic’.
“There are significant threats at our door, there are things that we have to tackle, therefore we should get on with it and do it properly in the context of wanting to see a strong economy, of seeing people as living standards grow and all of that, so it feels like a comprehensive story,” the Labour peer said.
It comes after a defence minister suggested the Government could announce new funding for defence “within weeks” after Number 10 was warned that our armed forces risked running out of money.
Speaking to LBC at a defence conference on Wednesday, armed forces minister Al Carns hinted that the Government could decide to increase spending “in a couple of weeks” to give our armed forces “the right capabilities”
.It comes amid reports that the prime minister is considering accelerating planned increases to defence spending, after NATO figures warned the UK risks falling behind European allies.
Chancellor Rachael Reeves has reportedly pushed back on the plan, rejecting requests by the Ministry of Defence to increase its budget by billions of pounds.
And, as reported by LBC in November, senior military figures have warned the Government that the MoD faces a funding ‘crisis’, and could be forced to cut key capabilities within two years at a time of growing threats from Russia.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Chatham House Security and Defence Conference in London, Mr Carns admitted the Cabinet faced “difficult choices” on spending.
When asked whether the Government was considering spending more on defence, he said: “In the next couple of weeks we’ve got decisions coming, so I would keep posted, and you will see us moving at the right speed to deliver the right capabilities for our armed forces.”
It comes as Britain faces being dragged into the US and Israel‘s conflict with Iran, which has seen Sir Keir face personal insults with Donald Trump after the US president accused him of inaction.
The Prime Minister has defended his decision not to allow the US to use British bases in the opening assault against the Tehran regime, suggesting it could have been unlawful and lacked a “viable, thought-through plan”.
The UK’s airbases, including Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, were initially denied to the US for their strikes against the Iranian regime.
In response to Iran’s retaliatory actions, Sir Keir has given the US permission to use British bases for the limited purpose of attacking missile launchers and infrastructure, but RAF jets have not been involved in striking Iran.
The Government has also been criticised for failing to have enough military assets in the Middle East region after RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was hit by a drone.
Air defence destroyer HMS Dragon will be sent to the eastern Mediterranean to help protect Cyprus, but the Type 45 warship is not expected to sail until next week.
Sir Keir said Wildcat helicopters with anti-drone capabilities would be on the Mediterranean island this week.
And he insisted action had been taken in response to rising tensions in the region before the war broke out.
“Radar systems were pre-deployed, ground-based air defence was pre-deployed, counter-drone systems were pre-deployed, and F-35 jets were pre-deployed,” he said.
