A former Labour defence secretary will today attack Keir Starmer for displaying ‘corrosive complacency’ on protecting the UK.
Britain’s leaders are putting the nation in peril just as it is coming ‘under attack’, Lord Robertson will warn, insisting the Iran war should be a ‘rude wake-up call’ for ministers.
Lord Robertson was a defence secretary under Tony Blair from May 1997 until October 1999. He then became a Nato secretary general until 2004.
He also helped write Labour’s Strategic Defence Review last year, and will use a lecture today in Salisbury to accuse ‘non-military experts in the Treasury’ of ‘vandalism’ in prioritising benefits over defence.
He will say: ‘We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.’
And he is expected to identify a ‘corrosive complacency in Britain’s political leadership’ and say ‘lip service is paid to the risks, the threats, the red signals of danger – but even a promised national conversation about defence can’t be started’.
With Labour still to publish its long-awaited Defence Investment Plan, the peer will accuse Sir Keir of being unwilling ‘to make the necessary investment’ – something the Daily Mail has highlighted in its Don’t Leave Britain Defenceless campaign.
He will add: ‘We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe… Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.’
Lord Robertson’s intervention comes after Vladimir Putin last week sent a Russian warship to escort two of his shadow fleet vessels through the English Channel.
Sir Keir had previously trumpeted plans to seize sanctioned Russian vessels in British waters.
But the peer is expected to pour scorn on Chancellor Rachel Reeves for using ‘a mere 40 words on defence in over an hour’ in her Budget speech last year, while last month in her Spring Statement ‘she used none’.
And Lord Robertson will cite the UK’s inability to deploy more than one Royal Navy warship to the Mediterranean within the first fortnight of the Iran war as an example of the ‘parlous state’ of our current defences.
He will also warn that the UK faces ‘crises in logistics, engineering, cyber, ammunition, training and medical resources’.
Kemi Badenoch has accused Sir Keir of posturing on the world stage over the Middle East war while failing to rearm the nation.
The Tory leader said: ‘At a time of war in Europe and war in the Middle East… there’s no plan for how the Government is going to actually buy the equipment, weapons and munitions.’
A Government spokesman said last night: ‘We are delivering on the Strategic Defence Review to meet the threats we face.’
