OUSTED Labour prime minister Keir Starmer made his legacy pitch yesterday when he unveiled plans to increase spending on the UK armed forces by an additional £15 billion.
Starmer announced that UK spending on defence will be £80 billion a year by 2029 under the Labour government’s long awaited defence investment plan (DIP).
The DIP will include £5 billion to increase the armed forces’ use of drones and autonomous weapons needed – Starmer proclaimed in his speech – to make the UK armed forces ‘ten times more lethal’.
He opened his speech by beating the war drum with the added rank hypocrisy of saying that the human toll of international conflicts cuts across the British ‘values of justice’ and the ‘simple British impulse that bullies and dictators cannot be allowed to push people around.’
These threats, Starmer added, ‘are not remote’ as foreign states are also targeting the UK.
Starmer is of course talking about Russia, not about the US which has waged illegal war on Iran along with the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela and US president Donald Trump’s authorised murderous attacks on boats throughout the Caribbean.
Equally, he is not condemning the Zionist state of Israel which is guilty of committing crimes against humanity and genocide against the Palestinians, while invading and killing thousands in its illegal invasion of Lebanon.
For Starmer and world imperialism the enemy is Russia, which is portrayed as the evil empire in the press and parliament, on the verge of invading the UK and Europe at any moment. Increased defence spending is necessary to ‘confront countries like Russia’.
Starmer and the British capitalist class gloss over the reality that Russia commenced its military action in Ukraine as a direct result of the NATO drive to position nuclear weapons in that country on the border with Russia thus breaking earlier agreements limiting NATO deployment.
Instead, they attempt to whip up a war frenzy to justify handing out billions to the arms industry under cover of it being essential to ensure the ‘safety’ of British workers.
Starmer was deliberately vague about where all the billions will come from except to insist that the Labour government would not borrow the money.
With a national debt fast approaching £3 trillion the UK is in no position to borrow any more from the international financial markets and risk the wrath of the bond vigilantes.
Instead, Starmer talked of cancelling some road projects as if that would pay for the massive increase he is proposing.
In fact, it will be paid for out of savage austerity cuts to benefits, the NHS and the Welfare State.
Starmer won’t be around to implement this deal, that will be up to his likely successor Andy Burnham.
So far, Burnham has remained silent, but according to an article in the Daily Telegraph last week he reportedly told allies that he plans to spend more on defence than Starmer.
Behind all the talk of imminent threats from Russia and the desperate need to make the UK ‘safe’ from all its enemies, are the preparations by world imperialism for an all-out war to restore capitalist domination in Russia, a war to be paid for by slashing spending on the NHS and Welfare State.
With capitalism drowning in debt and facing bankruptcy the ruling class of the world is driven by this desperate economic crisis to embark on wars across the globe as the world crisis has deepened to a new and extremely dangerous stage of permanent war.
These are wars that capitalism will demand are paid for by the working class at home. However, the powerful working class in the UK will not sit back and see their lives destroyed in order to rescue capitalism.
The time has come for the working class of the world to rise up and overthrow their own ruling classes and advance to a worldwide socialist system.
In the UK, the TUC must be recalled and forced to organise a general strike to overthrow this reactionary warmongering Labour government and go forward to a workers government and socialism.
This is the only way to end capitalist wars and secure a safe and socialist future for all.
