Eliot Wilson

Sir Keir Starmer came to office in July 2024 on a manifesto which played heavily on defence. The Labour party, it proclaimed, had an absolute commitment to the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent and, 'as the party that founded Nato… [would] maintain our unshakeable commitment to the alliance'. It would also 'apply a Nato test to major defence programmes to ensure we meet our obligations in full'. The party would conduct a Strategic Defence Review (SDR) within its first year of office, 'set out the path to spending' 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence and publish a Defence Industrial Strategy. It is hard to overstate the degree to which Starmer's government has fallen short of its lavish and tough-talking promises.

Thursday was a bad day at the office for Sir Keir Starmer. The Prime Minister is already fighting fires on several fronts: the forthcoming Makerfield by-election, which is likely to return Andy Burnham to the House of Commons; an outbreak of anti-immigrant mob violence in Northern Ireland; the cost of living rising due to the ongoing US/Israel/Iran conflict; the continuing toxic fallout from Starmer’s appointment of Lord Mandelson as British Ambassador to the United States. Starmer has been under sustained fire over the grotesquely late Defence Investment Plan (DIP) and the level of additional public expenditure on defence it contains for some time.

The Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published a year ago and meant to be the fundamental framework of the government’s defence policy, was not a faultless document. On one issue at least, though, it was very clear: the United Kingdom’s steadfast commitment to Nato should be the primary focus of its strategic posture. The primacy of the alliance was emphasised so often it almost felt like subliminal suggestion. Keir Starmer’s foreword promised Britain would 'lead in Nato'; the Defence Secretary John Healey said 'our defence policy is "Nato First’", referred to 'our unshakeable commitment to Nato' and pledged to 'provide leadership in Nato'. Meanwhile, the SDR's authors said that 'Nato is the bedrock of our defence' and 'at the forefront of the UK’s many valuable alliances'.

Today marks a year since the government published its Strategic Defence Review (SDR). From the outset, it was clear that the review was hampered by its terms of reference, and the government’s heavy and shameless leaking of its contents to generate positive publicity was disgraceful. But it was a useful statement of intent, a framework on which to build Britain’s future defence capabilities. None of it, however, was going to have much impact without considering expenditure. The Defence Secretary, John Healey, in his foreword to the review stated that 'we will develop a new defence investment plan (DIP) to deliver the SDR’s vision'. That was critical: the DIP would contain the facts and figures, the calculations of hard cash, and was to be completed 'in Autumn 2025'.

As Andy Burnham, who is still mayor of Greater Manchester in his spare time, campaigns to win the Makerfield by-election in fewer than four weeks, he knows how much is at stake. It is not simply an opportunity to return to the ‘London-centric’ House of Commons he left nine years ago in order ‘to make a change, to challenge the status quo from the outside’. If he is returned to Parliament – as the odds very narrowly suggest he will be – there is a strong chance he will replace Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister within a short period of time. It is a staggeringly foolish decision by Burnham to seek her advice Given the situation, it is perfectly reasonable that Burnham has devoted some time to thinking about what his premiership would be like.

In the last 20 or 25 years, there has been a much greater understanding that a country’s 'national security' encompasses much more than the traditional duality of diplomacy and military power. Trade routes, public infrastructure, energy supplies and societal cohesion are all at play in terms of assessing threats and designing ways of defending against them. One key issue to emerge has been the concept of resilience: how well-prepared is Britain? What risk mitigation have we undertaken? How would we respond to a sustained conflict? What is the public mood? At the beginning of the year, the House of Lords appointed a select committee on national resilience, chaired by former adviser on corporate responsibility and self-regulation Baroness Coussins, to report on the subject by November.

The symphony of criticism aimed at the government for failing to live up to its promises of boosting Britain’s defences came to its crescendo this week. The lead author of last year’s strategic defence review (SDR), former Labour defence secretary and Nato secretary general Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, gave a speech at Salisbury’s Guildhall in which he savaged Sir Keir Starmer’s administration: he identified 'a corrosive complacency today in Britain's political leadership' and accused ministers of paying 'lip service' to 'the risks, the threats, the bright red signals of danger'. One of the mainstays of the criticism aimed at the government is the months-long, ongoing delay in publishing the defence investment plan (DIP).

The old joke runs that you can tell when a politician is lying because his lips are moving. It is unfair – our elected leaders rarely indulge in flat-out, unambiguous untruths – but part of politics is certainly about presenting complex issues in a favourable light. The current government has its own strange and maddening approach to this, but I will come back to that. Robertson’s rebuke is especially important because he was the lead author of last year’s Strategic Defence Review which Sir Keir Starmer hailed as a ‘landmark’ document Outside the arrogant utopianism of Zack Polanski’s Green party, there is a widespread consensus that the United Kingdom needs to spend more money on defence.

The Royal Navy has not had a good few weeks in reputational terms. It was nothing short of humiliating that it took three weeks to get the destroyer HMS Dragon to the eastern Mediterranean after RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was attacked by Iranian drones on 1 March. The ship was the only one of six Type 45 destroyers available for operations (and has now had to put into port at an undisclosed location because of a water supply issue). Then it emerged that a frigate of the Russian Navy had escorted two shadow fleet tankers through the English Channel this week. Despite Sir Keir Starmer’s tough talk about boarding parties and 'starving Putin’s war machine of the dirty profits that fund his barbaric campaign in Ukraine', the ships were unmolested.

With Donald Trump’s threat that ‘a whole civilization will die… never to be brought back again’ looming on Tuesday night, a temporary two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran was agreed. The arrangement, mediated by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, is fragile, but showed who the leading players in the current conflict are. Starmer seems to have created an image of himself as an influential but essential eirenic figure on the world stage, a diplomatic heavyweight with invaluable convening power Sir Keir Starmer, by contrast, appeared to be confused about his own role in the conflict.

There are those who will claim that Sir Keir Starmer has handled the UK’s response to America’s war with Iran skilfully and diplomatically. That said, one in ten of the population believes in astrology, so fringe positions will always attract some support. I would not even be sure the Prime Minister himself belongs to this particular clique. Starmer does, though, seem conscious that his stance was too passive and inscrutable when Operation Epic Fury began on 28 February and has been playing catch-up since then. The latest proposal for Britain’s contribution to containing and managing the conflict has been discreetly briefed to journalists.