First delivered to the March meeting of the YCL Central Committee, Saturday 15th March, 2025:
In recent weeks, Prime Minister Kier Starmer announced plans to increase the UK’s defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, expecting to spend an additional £13.4 billion a year by then. While initial funds for this increase are to be gained through a cut to foreign aid spending, such an increase in defence spending is of course also happening at a time when our government is set to introduce cuts to welfare.
Starmer’s Labour have already pledged £3 billion in cuts in the next 3 years, before facing us with the prospect of further cuts to disability benefit, Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and to funding for those with long-term illnesses returning to work.
Politicians like Starmer often talk about ‘tough choices’ when proposing cuts such as these, as if the government has few options and is being forced by existing limits of the economy. Yet when it comes to defence spending, suddenly such limits seem to go out the window!
These decisions are being made within a wider context of increased militarisation. Defence spending has grown worldwide, hitting £1.95 trillion last year – a growth of 7.4%. Europe in particular is pushing to be more assertive after long being dependent on the USA. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, declared “Europe urgently needs to rearm, and member states must be given the fiscal space to carry out a surge in defence spending”.
However, this increased assertiveness must not be mistaken as a move to a truly independent foreign policy, or a break with US-led imperialism. As it stands, a rearmed Europe would serve the same underlying interests of monopoly capitalism, and the US dollar continues to be central in the global economy – at least for now. Additionally, these European countries – including the UK – continue to be in the NATO military alliance.
So while the people of Britain are threatened with fresh cuts, after more than a decade of austerity, who is set to benefit from this increased defence spending and European military assertiveness? It is certainly not the working class. Perhaps then we should turn to the arms companies? It was noted in the Morning Star the other week how, following Starmer’s Lancaster House summit with 18 world leaders, BAE systems saw a record 19% surge in its shares. Similar gains were seen with Rolls-Royce, QinetiQ, Babcock International, and Chemring.
As communists, it is essential for us to show the true aims of this heightened militarisation. The likes of Rachel Reeves may claim that further handouts to arms companies “[create] jobs and drive growth”, but as CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt rightly highlighted , evidence shows military spending is of little benefit to employment. Interestingly, the same research found health spending to rank first place as an employment multiplier.
This does not stop some in the trade union movement, such as the GMB’s Matt Roberts, arguing in favour of defence spending as a means of growth and levelling-up. Nor does it stop Scottish First Minister John Swinney from backing Starmer’s plans to “reshape the economy” with this defence increase, despite his disagreement over the cut to international aid.
We communists know that militarism offers no real solutions to the people of Britain, Europe, nor the wider world.
We must promote a foreign and defence policy for Britain that is genuinely independent.
We must expose the lie that increased investment in warfare will bring good employment or a strong economy.
We must fight against theses unjustifiable cuts to welfare, highlighting how these are used to fund death and destruction abroad, at the expense of health and development at home.
Mia English is an Editor of Challenge
