Former Nato leader says UK’s national security is ‘in peril’

‘We are under attack, we are not safe’

Former Labour defence secretary, Lord George Robertson, in a speech to be delivered later on Tuesday will accuse “non-military experts in the Treasury” of “vandalism”.

Robertson wrote the government's Strategic Defence Review (SDR), which was delivered in June last year.

However, the 10-year defence investment plan to fund it has been repeatedly delayed.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Lord Robertson said that Prime Minister Keir Starmer was “not willing to make the necessary investment”.

The SDR was “backed by the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, with a total of over £270 billion being invested across this Parliament”, a government spokesperson said.

Lord Robertson, as a key government adviser, will also warn in his speech that “we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”, in a directly political intervention.

“We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe… Britain's national security and safety is in peril”, he will say, speaking in Salisbury.

He will add: “There is a corrosive complacency today in Britain's political leadership. Lip service is paid to the risks, the threats, the bright red signals of danger - but even a promised national conversation about defence can't be started.”

Meanwhile, the prime minister previously said the investment plan was on his desk and was being “finalised”.

Last year, defence spending was 2.3% of GDP (around £66bn), while a defence official highlighted the government's target to spend 3% of GDP on defence by the end of the next Parliament and 3.5% of GDP on core defence by 2035.

According to some reports, the plan has been held up over disagreements within government about how to fund it, as well as how to fund existing defence plans.

Kemi Badenoch, Conservative leader, said that she agreed with Lord Robertson, stressing that “we need to get serious” on defence. She suggested on BBC Radio 5 Live that the Tories would “repurpose funds from net zero projects to invest in our military”.

While on BBC's Today programme, General Sir Richard Barrons, another author of the SDR report, agreed with Lord Robertson that “there's an enormous gap between where we have to be to keep the country safe in the world we now live in and where we actually are”.

In future the organisation will see “a European Nato doing much more and the US doing much less”, Sir Richard said.

He added that “the US cavalry is not coming to bail us out now”, as he warned that the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force were “too small and too undernourished”.

The UK and other Nato countries have come under pressure to boost defence spending, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the re-election of Donald Trump as president.