We will undoubtedly ask, in years to come, how the issue of defence played no part in the 2024 General Election.
There was just a momentary spat when the Conservatives boasted that they would increase defence spending from its current level of 2.3 per cent to 2.5 per cent of GDP ‘by 2030’, while Labour said they would reach 2.5 per cent ‘when conditions allow’.
The latter is a meaningless statement, but the Conservatives’ claim is hardly a triumph of resolve.
And it is extraordinary that the greatly increased likelihood of Donald Trump being (re)elected President, following the cruelly public exposure of Joe Biden’s incapacity in their so-called debate last week, has still not caused the issue of defence to be raised in our own election.
Quit
It could hardly be clearer that Donald Trump, returned to the White House, will not just demand that we and other European countries pay much, much more of the costs of defence against the depredations of the insatiable warmonger in the Kremlin: he actually has no intention of assisting us.
Last month, it was revealed that Trump had told the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen: ‘We will leave, we will quit Nato. And by the way, you owe me $400 billion, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defence.’
It is said this was some sort of bluff; Trump’s negotiating tactic to get Europeans to cough up more.
Not according to John Bolton, who was his National Security Advisor: ‘I was there when he almost withdrew [from Nato], and he’s not negotiating. His goal here is not to strengthen Nato, it’s to lay the groundwork to get out.
A fortnight ago, I was at a lunch the leading Westminster think-tank Policy Exchange held for the man whom many tip to be National Security Advisor in Trump 2.0: Elbridge Colby.
The formidably articulate Colby, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence during the first Trump administration, shocked the British military panjandrums present with his strong intimation that he did not necessarily see a Russian attack on a European Nato member as a reason for the U.S. to send its forces into action.
He was unmoved as one of the guests pointed out that when the U.S., after 9/11, sought backing for its invasion of Afghanistan (where Osama bin Laden lurked), all its Nato allies sent troops in support, too.
Colby, like Trump, regards China as the only serious threat to U.S. interests, and believes all Washington’s military strategy should be directed against Xi Jinping’s plans for ‘Asian hegemony’: Beijing taking control of the archipelago of islands that runs from Japan, via Taiwan, to the southern edge of the South China Sea.
So, Colby told us, Europe must be ‘de-prioritised’, ridiculing what he called ‘the idea we should break our spear in Europe, which is much less important to the American people’.
Afterwards, when I spoke to him, Colby said: ‘You need to realise I’m moderate on this, compared with many in the Republican Party.’
He added: ‘Your Prime Minister says he will put 2.5 per cent of the UK’s GDP into defence. Why not 3.5 per cent? That’s what America spends.’
Fair point. Half a century ago, when there was no war in Europe, 5 per cent of our GDP was spent on defence.
Provoked
Ukraine is now the front line. This, at least, has come up in the election debates, after Donald Trump’s chum, Nigel Farage, claimed in a BBC interview that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was the result of Putin being ‘provoked by Nato expansion’.
In fact, prior to the Kremlin’s tanks rolling towards Kyiv in 2022, Nato’s borders had not moved an inch since Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined the bloc in 2004.
And Putin had repeatedly stated that their accession posed no threat to Russia’s national security. They will not feel so secure themselves, now.
If Sir Keir Starmer becomes PM on Friday, he will be flying to Washington four days later for a Nato summit marking the 75th anniversary of its founding.
Over it will loom the encroaching shadow of Donald Trump — and Europe being told that when it comes to Russia, deal with it yourselves.
If that happens, here’s the question not raised once in this election: how does Labour propose to pay for a generational increase in defence spending?
Starmer DID fight Corbyn: To stop Brexit
Sir Keir Starmer has never given an straight answer to the question ‘Why did you say that Jeremy Corbyn would be “a great prime minister”?’ He has also struggled to explain why he served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, while the likes of Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper refused.
But Starmer had another go last week, telling an interviewer that he was ‘right to fight from within the shadow cabinet’ and citing ‘commitment to NATO’ as an example.
Actually, NATO membership was never an issue. But Brexit was. And on this matter, Starmer definitely fought Corbyn: the then Labour leader was adamantly against the idea of a second referendum.
Starmer, however, knew that party members (unlike millions of Labour voters) were virulently anti-Brexit, and they wanted the country to vote again on the matter.
So at the 2018 party conference in Liverpool, and without warning the leadership, Starmer called for a second referendum, adding: ‘And nobody is ruling out Remain as an option.’
The delighted members rose to cheer, but instantly the Conservatives put out on social media: ‘Confirmed — Labour will not respect the result of the referendum’. Waving a copy of this in Sir Keir’s face, according to Tom Baldwin’s biography of Starmer, Corbyn’s political secretary Amy Jackson shouted: ‘Look at what you have just done!’
Indeed. I wrote in the days before Labour’s defeat in the 2019 election: ‘Look no further for the reason the Conservatives seem poised to win a tranche of seats in the Midlands and the North, some of which have not failed to back Labour in living memory. These are all constituencies which came out heavily for Brexit.’
Even after that, Starmer, running for the Labour leadership, asked if ‘free movement’ of migration with the EU should remain post-Brexit, replied: ‘Of course, bring [it] back.’
Now, though, he has focused his campaign on winning back the pro-Brexit voters he disdained, with every single poster mixing the Labour Party’s Red with a Union Jack. How fortunate for Sir Keir that so many have short memories.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
