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    Starmer planning big cuts to UK aid budget to boost defence spending, say sources
    United Kingdom

    Starmer planning big cuts to UK aid budget to boost defence spending, say sources

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    1. tree_boom on

      Starmer is currently making a statement to the house, but it started with an exchange about the fact that the contents had been leaked, so I think it’s pretty likely to be true.

      Tl;dr of the statement: 2.5% GDP on defence by 2027. £13.4 billion more annually from 27 onwards. That’s 3 years earlier than the Conservatives said they would do it, which was itself 5 years before the MoD’s most optimistic predictions.

      Ambition for defence spending to rise to 3% of GDP “in the next Parliament”, which would mean by ~2034

      As expected, the aid budget will be cut from 0.5% GDP to 0.3% to fund the defence increase

    2. Adm_Shelby2 on

      Yup, just confirmed aid is going from 0.5% gdp to 0.3 and defence is going up to 2.6%.

      It’s the right decision.

    4. SirJedKingsdown on

      Swapping soft power for hard power is the only logical choice in a post Pax-Americana world.

    5. Thandoscovia on

      Good, we have lived in a post Cold War dividend for far too long

      We need to get back to supporting our military and our NATO allies

    6. drawss4scoress on

      Good decision from the man. We give aid to countries like India while they have a space program ffs.

    7. ftatman on

      How sad is it that we are having to invest more in defence during the most enlightened era in human history. We could be solving the big issues collaboratively, but nooooo.

    8. memory_mixture106 on

      Overall, I think they should aim for 3% sooner ideally, but otherwise, I think this is the right decision, including where the money comes from.

    11. Striking_Branch_2744 on

      This is actually a good choice, our aid budget goes to quite ALOT of corrupt nations who don’t really deserve it anymore so time to focus inwards.

    13. BulkyAccident on

      Really good, sensible move given what’s going on right now. I’m glad this has been done sooner rather than later.

    14. Parshath_ on

      It sucks and is a shame to move aid money to defense, but there’s a reason for this being needed and blames to point at.

    16. Das_Fische on

      Good.

      The Americans have shown, **at best**, they can’t be trusted. The UK and Europe at large needs to get its shit together to achieve self-sufficient defence capabilities sufficient to oppose Russia without US aid.

      Good job we didn’t needlessly sacrifice our relationships and position within Europe any time recently! That would look bad right about now.

    17. AspirationalChoker on

      Of course it depends entirely what kind of aid they’re cutting this from but I’ll take defence spending over aid all day every day

    18. crazyabbit on

      This is long overdue, the first duty of government is to ensure the safety of their citizens.
      Everything else is secondary.

    19. InsideBoris on

      Good. As much as aid is a good thing we need to posture and sort what’s going on pragmatically and we should cut foreign aid before we up taxes or cut welfare.

    20. JayR_97 on

      One thing that would really help the military is getting Capita out of the recruitment. Apparently we get more than enough volunteers, but loads of people end up dropping out because the recruitment process takes months

    21. saxsan4 on

      Fantastic idea, should he 3% sooner and increasing to 5% by end of next parliament and kept at 5%

    22. Deep_fried_jobbie on

      I think we should add a penny to VAT and every tax band and drastically increase spending. Aiming for 5% of GDP. A new Entente Cordiale for nuclear weaponry between the French and us (with other countries paying) for a European nuclear blanket. Invest in drone manufacturing capabilities at scale and for as cheap as possible. Encourage fighting aged people to get as fit as possible. We can’t discuss the future or the way we’d like to do things if our country and way of life is under threat.

    23. CapoOn2nd on

      I say tax energy companies 80% of anything over their pre energy crisis profits and sink a chunk of that into defence as well.

      What are the energy companies going to do? Pull out of the U.K. completely and lose billions? The bastards doubled their yearly profits while our energy costs doubled and they had the audacity to claim the increased profits was from in trading with other energy companies and not from charging us more.

    24. Wilson-95816 on

      Excellent choice

      Given the state of the country, aid should be 0% until everyone is back on their feet

    25. MastermindEnforcer on

      I don’t like it, but it’s the right move. In an ideal world we’d be moving spending the other way, imo. But an ideal world, this isn’t. We need to project more hard power in the coming years or we’ll be at the whims of Russian, American and Chinese oligarchs before the decade closes.

    26. wkavinsky on

      That’s . . . not the place to cut from to increase defence spending.

      The aid budget helps enormously in *avoiding* needing to use the defence forces.

    27. Professional-Wing119 on

      This is a sensible move and what’s more, it will be extremely popular with the electorate as a whole, taking money from an incredibly maligned area (foreign aid) and investing it where it is badly needed. This will probably be the best received Starmer policy so far (not that the bar is very high at all). Hopefully the money will be spent wisely on much needed manpower and materiel instead of lining pockets.

    28. Mr_miner94 on

      It’s bad that even I as a staunch pacifist and “why have a huge military budget when we have allies” person thinks we need to pour money into the army.

    29. queen-bathsheba on

      We need to stop spending billions with Boeing and other usa companies and where possible source Europe.

    30. iMissTheDays on

      Right choice, we won’t be giving any aid if we’re dragged into a salami slicing war in the baltics with a Russia after they judge us too weak to aid our allies in a fight back. 

    31. Torco2 on

      The armed forces don’t actually need more money, like a lot of other things. 

      They need a root & branch punitive f*cking audit, and a dedicated fully empowered anti-corruption & waste taskforce. 

      To find out just where all the money *already* spent *actually* went and to send people to prison for rampant graft.

      After all France spends billions less than the UK, Russia pre-war spent about the same in dollar terms, hell throw in Japan too the JSDF is no joke.

      Yet look at what *they* get for *their* money, compared to Britain.

      The UK gets diabolically sh*t value for money already. So throwing moar money into that unreformed maw, is simply a criminal waste.

      W/O so much as an extra battalion to show for it.

    32. life-is-a-simulation on

      Very bad news for the budgets of people who study the gender of goats in Outer Mongolia.

    33. HideousPillow on

      i don’t like this move, raising to 2.5% of gdp is an increase of 0.2%, doesn’t exactly give an image of strength to russia. if you’re going to increase it, increase it by more

      and funding with overseas aid is way worse, i don’t understand why we’d step back in overseas aid when trump has just effectively abolished u.s.a.i.d. this is when we should be stepping up to fill the vacuum not stepping back to make an even bigger vacuum for china to step into, the effect this’ll probably have on our soft power is way too big to justify a 0.2% increase in defence. especially when we’ve already destroyed difid under boris

    34. MimesAreShite on

      there’s always more money for bombs, tanks and guns that we’ll never use but there’s never money to lift kids out of poverty

    35. im_actually_a_badger on

      I guess he needs to do it before his meeting with Trump, to avoid accusations of trump ordering him to do it.

    36. Clbull on

      It’s a step in the right direction but not enough to secure our future in a post-American NATO. We should really be ramping up our defense spending and raising taxes to fund it.

    37. myfirstreddit8u519 on

      Good. Why the fuck are we dishing out aid? “soft power” they’ll say. Show me when we’ve used that soft power to our benefit.

      The entire concept is a scam aimed at creating thought terminating cliches in midwit lefties so we can fund dumb shit.