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By Sam Tabahriti<\/p>\n
LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) – A former NATO chief and grandee of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party criticised the British prime minister on Tuesday for failing to adequately fund defence, leaving the country unsafe.<\/p>\n
George Robertson, \u200cwho served in the 1990s as UK defence secretary before leading NATO, told the Financial Times there \u200cwas a gap between Starmer’s rhetoric and action on defence, and Starmer was “not willing to make the necessary investment”.<\/p>\n
Asked about Robertson’s comments, Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters \u200bDowning Street “completely” rejected the characterisation.<\/p>\n
“It’s vital to make the right decisions. The prime minister is determined to ensure the defence investment plan is fit for the threats that we face,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Robertson, who helped draft a Strategic Defence Review commissioned by Starmer when Labour returned to power in 2024, later said in a lecture delivered in Salisbury, southern England, that Britain had become \u200cvulnerable to external threats.<\/p>\n
“We are under-prepared. We are \u2060under-insured. We are under attack. We are not safe,” he said.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the lecture, the FT had reported that he was expected to call out finance minister Rachel Reeves for devoting “only 40 \u2060words” to defence in a budget speech last autumn and not mentioning it at all in an update last month.<\/p>\n
The newspaper said he was expected to describe decisions made by “non-military experts in the Treasury” as “vandalism”.<\/p>\n
‘CORROSIVE COMPLACENCY’<\/p>\n
Starmer has blamed underinvestment in the military on 14 \u200byears of \u200brule by the rival Conservative Party, and has promised the largest \u200bsustained rise in defence spending since the Cold \u200cWar, to reach 3% of national output in the next parliament.<\/p>\n
The government has yet to publish a 10-year defence investment plan initially due before the end of last year, aimed at meeting the ambitions set out in the 2024 review co-written by Robertson.<\/p>\n
The review called for a shift towards drones, digital warfare and data-driven combat systems reflecting lessons drawn from the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
“The current conflict in the Middle East has to be a rude wake-up call to this country, on top of \u200cwhat we’ve already seen in Ukraine,” Robertson said in his address.<\/p>\n
“It \u200bshould remind us in the United Kingdom of our vulnerabilities, and there are \u200bmany, and in it is a detailed blueprint \u200bfor what needs to be done,” he added.<\/p>\n
He warned that delivering such a transformation of homeland \u200cdefence and deterrence would require significant funding.<\/p>\n
Starmer said last \u200bweek that the war in \u200bIran must be a turning point for Britain, pledging to strengthen the economy and military to cope with a more “volatile and dangerous” world.<\/p>\n
But Robertson accused Britain’s political leadership of a “corrosive complacency” towards defence, saying risks and threats were \u200backnowledged only in words and that even \u200ca promised national conversation on defence had yet to begin.<\/p>\n
“The cold reality of today’s dangerous world is \u200bthat we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget,” he concluded.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti, additional reporting by \u200bAlistair Smout.Editing by Elizabeth Piper, Peter Graff and Alistair Bell)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n