Ukraine: ‘Voters back spending 3% on defence – but not higher taxes to fund it’

When US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth spoke at a meeting of defence ministers in Munich last week, he left them in little doubt about where America stood. The US, the former Fox News host declared, would no longer be “primarily focused on the security of Europe” and the continent must now “take ownership of [its] conventional security.”

While this statement sent shockwaves through many European capitals, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. This is, after all, a government led by President Trump, who last year declared that he would “encourage” Russia to attack NATO members which didn’t pay their bills.

Nonetheless, at a time when Ukraine is fighting for its very survival, and many European states worry they may be next, the news that America is packing its bags and leaving is understandably terrifying.

Starmer can no longer keep delaying on defence

Given this new geopolitical reality, Starmer’s government can no longer keep delaying, but must now make defence and national security a key priority. A first step would be to announce an immediate increase in defence spending to 2.5% GDP, as well as laying out a clear roadmap of further increases in expenditure to at least 2.75% over the coming years. Funding alone, however, is not enough. The Ministry of Defence has to be rapidly reformed to allow it to ruthlessly pursue one objective – the ability to quickly deliver capability to frontline forces.

More fundamentally, there needs to be a wider change in mindset, to embed national security into all parts of government policy. From trade and investment to agriculture and energy, all major decisions should be seen through the prism of defence and domestic self reliance. We need to realise that we now live in a much less friendly world, and we can’t rely on other countries continuing to sell us all the vital raw materials and goods we depend on. Anyone who doesn’t believe this should look at how China has been willing to weaponise access to rare earth metals as part of its wider foreign policy plans.

There’s not enough spare cash to cover rises

While the actions Starmer and the government need to take are clear, it will still be a challenge to achieve them. For starters, increasing defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP would cost an additional £5bn annually, a significant amount of money. To put this context, introducing means testing to the winter fuel allowance was projected to save the government just £1.3bn last year, not even a third of the cost of increase the defence budget to 2.5%.

Given the weak economic data and the increase in government debt interest costs, there simply isn’t any spare cash floating around to fund this. That means increases must either be covered by higher taxation or cutting costs elsewhere, which will prove unpopular with the voters.

Voter support for more defence spending is fickle

Overall, the public seem to be aware of the need for a greater emphasis on defence. A recent YouGov poll found that 50% of UK voters would support increasing the NATO defence spending requirement to 3%, compared to just 21% who would oppose it. Nonetheless, this support is fickle, as when asked in a separate poll whether they were willing to pay more in taxes to increase defence spending, just 30% of respondents agreed, with 55% opposing it.

Perhaps even more worrying for Starmer is that when the data is broken down by party, Labour voters are especially likely to favour funding for public services over defence, raising the question of whether the government are willing to alienate their base.

There is also a risk that focusing on security will detract from other key objectives, like reforming the NHS and growing the economy. Governments only have a limited amount of bandwidth, and time and political capital expended on one priority can’t be used for something else. Also, pursuing national security may mean having to compromise on other electoral promises. The need to achieve greater domestic energy security, for example, could be done by allowing fracking to unlock huge domestic natural gas deposits across the UK. This, however, would fly in the face of Labour’s commitment to both net zero and banning fracking.

Despite these challenges, Starmer must act now. The new geopolitical reality Europe faces is painfully clear, and years of underinvestment by the last Conservative government mean we are woefully underprepared. While the public  may not want to choose guns over butter, history and the voters will condemn leaders that leave them vulnerable and insecure.

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