Outgoing minister says treasury \u201cunwilling\u201d to commit resources for nation at this time of rising threats
\nLondon
\nBritish defence minister John Healey quit on Thursday in a dispute over military spending, accusing Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failing to commit the government resources that are needed to defend the country at a time of heightened threat.
\nThe unexpected resignation, accompanied with a scathing public letter, compounds the pressure on Starmer when he is facing a likely leadership challenge and exposes the crisis at the heart of government \u2014 how it can ramp up defence spending when there is no money to spare.
\nBritain\u2019s defence and finance ministries have been locked in talks for months over how to meet rising demands to expand military spending, delaying Britain\u2019s Defence Investment Plan (DIP) which was expected to be published last year.
\nMilitary leaders have stressed the plan is needed to meet the rising threat level at a time of frequent Russian incursions into British waters, but the government is already struggling to reduce debt while the overall tax burden at its highest level in decades.
\nThe high-profile resignation comes as Starmer struggles to hold onto power, after Wes Streeting resigned as health minister in May and as another challenger, Andy Burnham, attempts to return to frontline politics to launch a leadership bid.
\n\u201cYou have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats,\u201d Healey said in his letter to Starmer.
\nBritain\u2019s defence industry has been infuriated over the delay to the plan, saying it cannot invest in long-term programmes.
\nThe UK is contending with the US pivoting away from protecting Europe while at the same time the US-Israeli war with Iran exposed Britain\u2019s lack of military readiness with its navy unable to immediately deploy an advanced warship to the region.
\nThe defence plan is aimed at laying out the funding for military equipment and services to ensure the armed forces move to a state of \u201cwarfighting readiness\u201d, and Starmer said on Wednesday it would be published before a Nato summit beginning on July 7.
\n\u201cYour DIP financial settlement \u2014 which I was first given in full on Monday afternoon this week \u2014 falls well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time,\u201d Healey said.
\n\u201cI am being forced to make decisions that would reduce the readiness of our forces and increase the risk to personnel on operations, and could make the country less safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Outgoing minister says treasury \u201cunwilling\u201d to commit resources for nation at this time of rising threats London British defence minister John Healey quit on Thursday in a dispute over military spending, accusing Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failing to commit the government resources that are needed to defend the country at a time of heightened …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":98972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98973,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98955\/revisions\/98973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}