A Damning Indictment from Within: Lord Robertson’s Speech Exposes Britain’s Defence Emergency
Yesterday evening, at the Guildhall in Salisbury, Lord George Robertson delivered a speech of extraordinary force. The former Labour Defence Secretary, NATO Secretary General and principal author of Sir Keir Starmer’s own Strategic Defence Review did not mince his words. Britain, he declared, is “underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe. Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.” There is, he said, “a corrosive complacency today in Britain’s political leadership.” Non-military experts in the Treasury stand accused of “vandalism”. And in a direct challenge to the government he once advised, Lord Robertson warned: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
Today’s media coverage - from the BBC and Sky News to ITV and the Guardian - has rightly treated this as a moment of national significance. Coming just days after his equally blunt interview with the Financial Times, Lord Robertson’s intervention is not the grumble of an outsider. It is a senior Labour figure, hand-picked by Sir Keir Starmer to shape defence policy, now warning that the government is failing to match its rhetoric with the hard cash required. Even the conflict in Iran, he suggested, should serve as a “rude wake-up call”.
From the perspective of UK Defence First, which has long insisted that defence and security must be the first priority of any British government, this is both welcome and profoundly sobering. Lord Robertson’s critique goes far beyond one administration. For thirty-five years, successive Labour, Conservative and Coalition governments have presided over a steady erosion of Britain’s armed forces. The result is a military that is hollowed out, under-equipped and dangerously exposed at a time when threats from Russia, China, Iran and hybrid warfare have never been more acute.
The decline began with the post-Cold War “peace dividend”. Under John Major, defence spending fell sharply from 3.9 per cent of GDP in 1992 to 2.6 per cent by 1997. Labour’s return in 1997 brought no meaningful reversal. Tony Blair’s 1998 Strategic Defence Review promised modernisation, yet operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were chronically underfunded. Procurement disasters multiplied. By 2010 the forces were smaller, older and overstretched.
The 2010 Coalition inflicted the deepest cuts in a generation. The Army was slashed to 82,000 regulars, Harrier jets were scrapped and entire capabilities mothballed. Later Conservative governments offered modest uplifts and grand promises - a 2.5 per cent GDP target, the 2021 Integrated Review - but delivery lagged. Munitions stocks dwindled, recruitment targets were missed year after year, and programmes such as Ajax and Type 26 suffered chronic delays born of deliberate underfunding. By last summer the Army stood at roughly 75,000 trained regulars, the Navy could muster only a handful of deployable escorts, and Britain’s independent acting capability had become little more than notional.
Labour’s victory in July 2024 was greeted with fine words. The Strategic Defence Review, published in June 2025, called for warfighting readiness, new munitions factories, enhanced cyber and missile defence and a revitalised industrial base. Ministers endorsed all 62 recommendations. Yet six months later the promised ten-year Defence Investment Plan remains undelivered. A £28 billion funding gap has been widely reported. Procurement is paralysed, industry faces continued uncertainty and defence spending hovers at around 2.3 to 2.5 per cent of GDP, propped up by accounting sleight of hand.
This is no administrative oversight. It is a political choice. While welfare budgets expand and net-zero commitments consume billions, the armed forces are told to do more with less. Recruitment shortfalls persist. Training is curtailed. Stockpiles of shells, missiles and spares remain inadequate for sustained high-intensity operations. The Royal Navy struggles to maintain presence in key theatres. The Army is now smaller than many of its European counterparts. Britain’s ability to act independently - a core principle of UK Defence First - has been eroded almost to fiction.
Lord Robertson’s intervention, echoed today across the political spectrum, confirms what many have long feared: this is a national emergency. The current Labour government must now act with urgency to rectify thirty-five years of collective neglect.
It should publish the Defence Investment Plan immediately, with ring-fenced, multi-year funding that matches the ambition of the Review. Defence spending must rise to three per cent of GDP within this Parliament - not as an aspiration or clever accounting, but as a binding commitment - with a clear pathway to the five per cent of national income on defence and security that UK Defence First has consistently advocated.
British industry must be placed first. Firm orders for munitions, ships, aircraft and uncrewed systems must flow without delay to UK yards and factories. Sovereign capability cannot be outsourced. Procurement reform must finally deliver speed and certainty. A national recruitment and retention drive is overdue, backed by competitive pay, conditions and housing. A Defence Readiness Bill should place the forces on a genuine war footing.
Above all, ministers must reorder national priorities. An ever-expanding welfare budget cannot indefinitely crowd out the defence of the realm. Painful choices on overseas aid, Net Zero, bureaucracy and lower-priority spending are unavoidable. Britain’s security must come first.
Lord Robertson has sounded the alarm from the very heart of the Labour establishment. The government now faces a stark choice: heed his warning and rebuild our defences with urgency and resolve, or risk the safety of the British people in an increasingly dangerous world. History will judge the decision harshly. The time for complacency is over. The time for action is now.