By Sam Tabahriti
LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) – A former NATO chief and grandee of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party criticised the British prime minister on Tuesday for failing to adequately fund defence, leaving the country’s national security in peril.
George Robertson, who served in the 1990s as UK defence secretary before leading NATO, told the Financial Times there was a gap between Starmer’s rhetoric and action on defence, and Starmer was “not willing to make the necessary investment”.
Asked about Robertson’s comments, Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters Downing Street “completely” rejected the characterisation.
“It’s vital to make the right decisions. The prime minister is determined to ensure the defence investment plan is fit for the threats that we face,” the spokesperson said.
Robertson, who helped draft a Strategic Defence Review commissioned by Starmer when Labour returned to power in 2024, planned to say later on Tuesday in a lecture that Britain had become vulnerable to external threats, according to excerpts published by the FT and BBC.
In his lecture, to be delivered in Salisbury, southern England, Robertson was expected to call out finance minister Rachel Reeves for devoting “only 40 words” to defence in a budget speech last autumn and not mentioning it at all in an update last month, the FT said.
“Britain’s national security and safety is in peril,” he was due to say, according to the excerpt. “We are under-prepared. We are under-insured. We are under attack. We are not safe.”
‘CORROSIVE COMPLACENCY’
Robertson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Starmer has blamed underinvestment in the military on 14 years of rule by the rival Conservative Party, and has promised the largest sustained rise in defence spending since the Cold War, to reach 3% of national output in the next parliament.
The government has yet to publish a 10-year defence investment plan initially due before the end of last year, aimed at meeting the ambitions set out in the 2024 review co-written by Robertson.
The review called for a shift towards drones, digital warfare and data-driven combat systems reflecting lessons drawn from the war in Ukraine.
Starmer said last week that the war in Iran must be a turning point for Britain, pledging to strengthen the economy and military to cope with a more “volatile and dangerous” world.
But according to the excerpts, Robertson planned to accuse Britain’s political leadership of a “corrosive complacency” towards defence and describe decisions made by “non-military experts in the Treasury” as “vandalism”.
“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget,” he was expected to say.
(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti, additional reporting by Alistair Smout.Editing by Elizabeth Piper and Peter Graff)
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