JUST days after the British armed forces supported the illegal seizure of the empty Russian-flagged oil tanker, the Marinera, by the US military in the North Atlantic on Wednesday, UK defence chiefs are demanding £20 billion more in military spending to put UK ‘boots on the ground’ in the Ukraine, further threatening Russia.
Labour Defence Secretary John Healey has claimed unconvincingly to MPs that the act of piracy was ‘in full compliance with international law’, adding the UK ‘will not stand by as malign activity increases on the high seas’ and ‘is stepping up action against shadow vessels’.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer discussed the joint operation, as well as recent talks on Ukraine and the US operation in Venezuela, in a phone call with President Trump on Wednesday evening.
Echoing President Trump’s demand to increase US defence spending by $1.5 trillion, to fund his war campaigns, by even deeper cuts to welfare and social spending, Britain’s chief of Defence staff, Richard Knighton, warned Starmer that the Ministry of Defence demanded funding for a £28 billion black hole despite previous plans to boost defence spending.
This demand comes despite and on top of Starmer’s previous promise to increase the defence spending target from 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent by 2027, with further vague pledges in his Strategic Defence Review (SDR) to hit 3 per cent in the early 2030s and 3.5 per cent by 2035.
It is understood the Prime Minister has now ordered an overhaul of the defence investment plan (DIP), which will set out how the SDR would be delivered.
The PM was said to be unhappy at Knighton’s claim, believing the SDR – in which he pledged to build 12 new massively expensive attack submarines and to increase the overall size of the army by 3,000 soldiers to 76,000 in the next Parliament – was ‘fully costed’.
However, at the Paris conference of 40 pro-Ukraine EU leaders and ‘willing coalitionists’ last week, Starmer also committed to deploying British troops to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire or ‘peace deal’ with a probable contingent of about 7,500 soldiers. Critics say that a lack of investment makes this pledge almost impossible to achieve.
For the first time, the US agreed at the meeting ‘to support the force in case of attack’.
Starmer explained that: ‘In today’s discussions, we have … gone into greater detail about the mechanics of the deployment of the force on the ground.
‘Alongside our plans for a co-ordination cell, post-ceasefire, the UK and France will also establish ‘military hubs’ across Ukraine to enable the deployment and build protected facilities for weapons and military equipment to support Ukraine’s defensive needs.’
James Cartlidge, the Tory shadow defence secretary, said: ‘They promised the Defence Investment Plan for last autumn, but it’s clearly going to be months late, entirely because the money just isn’t there to fund it.
‘Labour has prioritised higher welfare spending over defence of the realm and our armed forces are paying the price.’
The army has already shrunk to its smallest size in more than 200 years, with about 71,000 fully trained, full-time soldiers currently in its ranks.
General Richard Dannatt, the former head of the army, feared that its diminished size would make any long-term mission in Ukraine almost impossible to achieve without increasing by at least 10,000 soldiers insisting that Labour must also spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence in this Parliament.
Of course, military hubs for rapid troop deployment, weapons storage and 10,000 troops have nothing to do with some sort of ‘peace’ deal, but are preparations for an all-out imperialist war with Russia, to be paid for with spending cuts to the NHS and welfare state.
With capitalist economies engulfed in debt, stagnant and bankrupt, the ruling classes of the world are driven by the economic crisis to embark on war against Russia, China and former colonial states, and also against the working class.
With Trumps’ illegal attack on Venezuela and military threats against Greenland, Mexico, Cuba and others, the world capitalist crisis has deepened to a new and extremely dangerous stage of permanent wars.
In fact, the time has come for the working class of the world to now rise up to overthrow their own ruling classes, and bring in worldwide socialism!
The supine TUC must be recalled and be made to organise a general strike to overthrow this reactionary warmongering Labour government and to go forward to a workers government and socialism.
This is the only way to stop capitalist wars and barbarism!
