Shortly before he flew to Washington, Sir Keir Starmer turned up in the Commons, put on his sombre voice and declared: “Everything has changed.” One of the more startling transformations has been to Sir Keir himself. The Labour leader came to office thinking, as did most of those who voted for him, that he was going to be a domestically orientated prime minister with primary ambitions to improve living standards, build lots of homes and rejuvenate public services. That’s what “change”, his one-word election slogan, was supposed to be about. When he originally selected his overriding “five missions”, the defence of the realm didn’t make the cut.
His central definition today is as a geopolitically focused prime minister who is promising to spend more on guns, missiles and warplanes and less on international aid. More British bullets will be purchased at the expense of succour to the impoverished and desperate of the world. This shift gives a flintier profile to his leadership, but not in a way that either supporters or opponents anticipated during last summer’s election. Most Labour people don’t quarrel with the argument that Britain has to put up its guard, but a lot of them, including queasy members of the Starmer cabinet, are wriggling uncomfortably about taking the hatchet to the international development budget. In the days since the decision was announced, they have taken to wondering what manner of Labour government is this?
The short explanation for this transmogrification is two words and an initial: Donald J Trump. The upheaval in the international order unleashed by the US president has shattered decades-old assumptions about the western alliance. This has had a more profound impact on Sir Keir than any other event. A prime minister who used to earn his living as a human rights lawyer has had a crash course in realpolitik from the nakedly transactional practitioner of great power games who resides on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Sir Keir came away from his encounter at the White House on Thursday empty-handed when it came to securing a bankable guarantee that there will be US military cover for any British and French peacekeepers deployed to Ukraine. What the prime minister did win was an apparent blessing for the Chagos Islands deal, puncturing Nigel Farage’s repeated claims that the White House is opposed to it. There were encouraging noises that the UK may swerve US tariffs and pats on the head for Sir Keir from his host for being a “special man” and a “very tough negotiator”. The price was paid in the currency of ingratiation. This was at its most toe-curling when the prime minister delved into his jacket pocket to flourish an invite from the king for the US president to make an “unprecedented”, “truly historic” second state visit to the UK. Excuse me while I find something to retch into. The other tribute to the Maga King was setting a 2027 deadline for lifting British defence spending to 2.5% of GDP with 3% as the ultimate target.
Boosting defence spending is both a response to Trump’s demands that Europe pulls its weight and an insurance policy against the withdrawal of American security guarantees. Downing Street reeled at the callous and chilling monstering of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a democratically elected leader fighting for his country’s freedom against tyranny, at the White House on Friday. The shocking ugliness of the televised scene amplified Number 10’s unspoken fears that the Trump regime poses an existential challenge to European security.
I’ve been among those anticipating this pivot. Given how menacing the world looked even before Trump’s return to the Oval Office, it was not sustainable to leave Britain’s armed forces in such a parlous condition that our own defence secretary describes them as “hollowed out”. The intelligence chiefs and the top brass have become increasingly clamourous about the growing scale and intensity of threats from a spectrum of malevolent adversaries.
The issue then becomes whether the money will be spent well or wastefully. The Ministry of Defence has a rotten record when it comes to equipping the armed forces in a timely and cost-effective way. The onus is now on John Healey and the service chiefs to prove that they can get the maximum bang from the taxpayers’ extra bucks.
The pain inflicted on the international aid budget will be brutal. Sir Keir was all crocodile tears when he intoned that regrettably “hard choices” had to be made, as if more money for defence could only be found by stealing it from aid programmes. There were many other options for a government that spends in excess of £1tn a year. These included being less generous towards other demands for spending, bearing down on escalating costs in areas of welfare or raising more from taxation. Though the prime minister claims he did not take this decision “lightly”, the international development budget was targeted because Downing Street and the Treasury reckoned it was the politically least painful option.
This is the superficially clever and unashamedly cynical choice when it comes to electoral calculations. Polling suggests that cutting aid is a popular option with around two-thirds of voters. There’s an assumption among Labour strategists that aid is particularly resented by the kind of voter who supported Labour at the election and is now flirting with Reform or has already switched to it. There’s some truth in this analysis, but it is not the whole truth. There’s danger for Labour among the significant wedge of voters who chose the party at the election partly on the basis that it was more compassionate, enlightened and internationalist than the Tories. They didn’t expect Labour to outdo the last Conservative government in slashing the development budget.
The case for spending on aid is easily made. On top of the humanitarian good it does, there’s the mitigation against instability, conflict and extremism. It also helps win friends and influence people in other countries who can be useful to the UK in the projection and protection of our national interests. These arguments will be highly familiar to Sir Keir and his cabinet because it was precisely the case they used to make themselves when they berated the Conservatives for raiding the budget. As Labour’s election manifesto put it, international aid helps make “the world a safer, more prosperous place”.
The UK used to be able to make the claim that its record on helping the poorer parts of the planet made us a soft power superpower. As recently as 2020, the UK was one of only seven wealthy countries that met the UN target to spend 0.7% of gross national income on aid. The Conservatives cut that to 0.5% under Boris Johnson and it will now be slashed down to just 0.3%. Since a hefty chunk of the budget is being spent on asylum-seekers within Britain, the net amount supporting international development will be even more miserly. Programmes threatened include those alleviating poverty, tackling disease, improving the education of young people and addressing the climate crisis.
This was a humiliation for Annaliese Dodds who was presented with a fait accompli just 24 hours before the cuts were announced. Number 10 clearly reckoned there was a slight risk that she would resign as international development minister, or decided it wasn’t terribly bothered even if she did. She has quit with the warning that denuding the international development budget will only encourage Russia’s aggressive effort to increase its presence worldwide. Blood must be rushing to the head of David Lammy. Justifying the cut has obliged the foreign secretary to stand on his head. It is only very recently that he was wagging a finger at the Americans by telling them it was a “big strategic mistake” to let Elon Musk eviscerate the US development budget. He accompanied that with the warning that China would exploit the vacuum to further its influence.
I am being generous when I say that it is disingenuous of Sir Keir and his loyalists to suggest that they were faced with an either/or choice between defence spending in the name of national security and non-defence spending in troubled and distressed places abroad. The UK is an affluent country that likes to think it can punch above its weight. Even when money is tight, this nation is wealthy enough to wield both hard power and soft power.
The face of Britain that the Starmer government is now presenting to the world is one that aspires to be more muscular while also looking meaner. Muscular is necessary in the scary new world order. Meaner is a myopic mistake that will render Britain less safe.
• Andrew Rawnsley is the Chief Political Commentator of the Observer
