Reduce Foreign Aid To Fund The Military, Says Former Foreign Office Minister
Jeremy Browne wants to see a shift from soft to hard power
3 min read
A former foreign office minister has urged the government to reduce foreign aid spending and put the money saved towards funding the military.
Jeremy Browne, a former Liberal Democrat MP who served in the Tory-led coalition government, said the UK must shift from "soft to hard power" and "learn to stand solidly on our own feet" in response to the world's changing defence landscape.
Browne, now CEO of Latin America-focused organisation Canning House, is the latest figure to call for bigger defence spending in response to the Donald Trump administration's warnings that the US will play a reduced part in protecting the West from aggressors like Russia.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is committed to raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP in the future, but is under growing pressure to quickly raise it to a higher level.
Writing in The House magazine, Browne, the former MP for Taunton Deane, said the UK must be "clear-minded and confront some difficult truths".
"2.3 per cent of GDP is not a big enough defence budget to frighten aggressors or fully reassure allies.
"Borrowing over £13bn extra every year to give that money away in overseas development aid (ODA) – sometimes intelligently; sometimes wastefully – sits uncomfortably with an under-resourced military.
"And our foreign diplomacy is being done on the cheap: too few people; junior staff making up shortfalls; senior employees underpaid."
He added: "We need to take a fresh look at the MoD, FCDO and ODA budgets in the round, shifting the emphasis from soft to hard power."
During the Covid pandemic, in 2021, the Tory government reduced the spending target for ODA from the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income to 0.5 per cent.
The Labour government has said it will restore the 0.7 per target as soon as economic circumstances allow, but growing pressure to increase defence spending in light of recent developments may put pressure on this commitment.
Two Labour MPs, Laura Kyrke-Smith and Melanie Ward, argued in The House that the government's plans to raise spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP were no longer sufficient and that the UK should look to Poland, which plans to reach 4.7 per cent this year.
Leading economist Paul Johnson told PoliticsHome that there is a "good chance" the Labour government would raise taxes to fund higher defence spending.
A YouGov poll published earlier this week, however, suggested that more people would oppose than support tax rises to fund a bigger defence budget.
Starmer next week will fly to Washington, where he will meet with Trump to discuss US efforts to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.
The returning president's approach so far — excluding European nations, including Ukraine, from negotiations with Russia and calling Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine a "dictator" — has triggered outrage in Europe.
Browne said that the UK should avoid "theatrical displays of distancing" from Trump, arguing that "playing to a domestic gallery is juvenile politics when the circumstances are so consequential".
"The relationship with the United States remains the most important show in town," he wrote.
" It is Britain’s biggest security protector, intelligence collaborator and trading partner. All of these planks of our national wellbeing should be championed and defended with relentless focus and seriousness...
"We must also demonstrate our indispensable value to the US. Of course it is nothing like a partnership of equals, but nor is it insignificant."
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