Aid for Defence

Keir Starmer is making a right pig’s ear of things. He’s so fixated on the idea that Reform is peeling off working-class votes that he’s now running after Farage’s lot like a desperate ex trying to prove he’s still relevant. His latest wheeze? Raiding the foreign aid budget to boost defence spending. It’s performative, it’s pointless, and worst of all, it’s Tory thinking dressed up in Labour clothing.

Let’s be clear. Labour did not just inherit the economic straightjacket from the Tories, they willingly strapped it on. Rachel Reeves has tethered herself to fiscal rules designed for austerity politics, all while the country desperately needs investment. Borrowing is not reckless. It is how economies grow. Every pound invested in defence contracts, infrastructure, and recruitment does not just strengthen national security. It feeds into manufacturing, R&D, and jobs, boosting GDP and tax revenues in the process.

Starmer is running after Reform voters who were never his to begin with, while alienating the people who actually put him in power. He is not in danger of being outflanked by Reform. He is in danger of boring his own voters into apathy, handing the Tories an easy win.

And cutting development aid is not just cruel. It is idiotic. Aid prevents the very instability that leads to war, migration, and security threats. Slash it and we will spend even more dealing with the fallout later. If Starmer thinks gutting aid is the way to bolster defence, he has got it backwards. The less we invest in global stability, the more we will end up spending on military interventions and crisis management down the line. But there is another problem. Where Britain retreats, China steps in. Beijing has spent years using development aid and infrastructure projects to expand its global influence. The UK slashing its already meagre foreign aid budget will not just weaken our global standing. It will hand influence in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to the Chinese Communist Party on a silver platter.

Foreign aid is not just charity. It is soft power. It is the ability to persuade developing nations to vote with you in the United Nations, support your diplomatic efforts, and reject the influence of authoritarian regimes. Right now, as Russia and China work to reshape global institutions in their favour, cutting aid is an act of strategic self-sabotage. If the UK is not investing in relationships with the Global South, Beijing and Moscow will. That has consequences on sanctions, on security resolutions, and on international legitimacy. When Britain abandons its allies, it loses its voice on the world stage.

Of course, there is an election on the horizon. Labour faces a serious test in the local elections in May, and it is possible Starmer’s judgement is being clouded by short-term political calculations. He might even have a point. A weak showing in May would embolden the right-wing press and Tory MPs desperate to reclaim ground. But here is the thing. Most of us could not care less who runs our councils, so long as the bins are emptied and the buses run on time. Starmer is acting like this is a national referendum on his leadership, when in reality, most voters just want basic services to work. Labour is overestimating the threat while underestimating how much damage they are doing to their own base.

And let’s talk about defence. If Labour is serious about it, the real solution is not scrimping and saving from aid budgets. It is proper investment. That means borrowing to fund defence increases in a way that actually strengthens the economy. Infrastructure, technology, workforce expansion. None of it happens without capital. The UK is in a far better position to borrow than the doom-mongers in the Treasury would have you believe. Yet Starmer is still dancing to the Tory tune of debt-phobia while pretending he is being pragmatic.

Labour wants a bigger military while cutting migration, despite the fact that 10 percent of armed forces personnel are foreign-born. Do they want a stronger defence or fewer migrants? Because they cannot have both.

Then there is the unavoidable fact that borrowing to fund defence will itself increase GDP. That is how economies work. More spending means more jobs, more industrial output, and more tax revenue. The UK defence industry is a massive employer, with supply chains feeding into manufacturing, engineering, and research. A bigger defence budget means more money circulating through the economy, and that in turn pushes GDP higher. But here is the kicker. If GDP rises, Labour will have to spend even more on defence just to keep up with its own 2.5 percent of GDP target. The better the economy does, the bigger the cheque they will need to write for the military. They are setting themselves up for a cycle where success demands ever greater spending, yet they refuse to make the case for borrowing as a long-term investment and will have to cut foreign aid even further. It is economic illiteracy dressed up as fiscal prudence.

Harold Macmillan was once asked what derails governments, and his response was simple. “Events, dear boy, events.” That is where Labour is headed. By prioritising optics over economic logic, they are setting themselves up for failure. The fiscal rules they have shackled themselves to will be broken sooner or later because that is what happens when reality intervenes. The choice Starmer faces is not whether to stick to Tory-lite economic discipline or to break it. It is whether to do it on his own terms or be forced into a U-turn later.

If Labour had the courage of its convictions, it would be making the argument for a smarter economic strategy, not just nibbling at Tory policies while pretending they are doing something radical. Labour is not heading for a battle with Reform. It is walking itself into an open goal for the Tories.