Successive governments over decades have allowed our conventional forces to wither on the vine.
It’s right that we have spent huge sums on our nuclear deterrent, but with a conventional war currently raging on the European continent, we have to accept that a nuclear deterrent is not a sufficient defence policy alone.
Keir Starmer’s pledge to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP is welcome, but we cannot be under any illusions. This does not mean that we are going to suddenly become a serious fighting force.
Getting Britain’s defence capability into a truly fighting-fit state is going to take sustained investment over many years.
Ten highest spending countries on defence (% of GDP)GBN
Since the turn of the century, our armed forces numbers have decreased by over 30%.
In the 90s, around 55,000 MoD homes were sold off, including in my home county of the Vale of Glamorgan.
In 2024, the UK Government bought back a large chunk, realising after decades that hollowing out our armed forces was the wrong move for our national security and our long-term public finances.
And shamefully, we have allowed protesters of various stripes to climb on the Cenotaph and graffiti the statue of our greatest wartime leader, Winston Churchill.
We have to get back the enormous amount of respect people had for our armed forces when I was growing up. That’s about funding, but also about education and changing attitudes which have increasingly become anti-patriotic in this country.
As many as five images of Churchill have been removed from parts of the parliamentary estate occupied primarily by MPs’ officesGETTY
Farmers have warned Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tax raid will lead to many selling up, damaging Britain’s food security
PA
So it’s time to forget the idea that submarines with nuclear weapons alone will keep us safe. We have to put sustained investment into our forces, to undo the years of neglect, and then go further and build a fighting force that can stand up for Britain. And we have to maintain our food security.
But we also have to recommit to our armed forces that during and after their service they will be revered and supported, whether that’s with finding a home or with mental health treatment.
Defence spending alone won’t undo the financial, social and cultural rot that has let our servicemen and women down, but it is a good start.
I only hope that if peace breaks out in Ukraine, the political appetite remains in Britain to ensure we’re well equipped for any challenges that emerge in the coming years and decades.
