Keir Starmer faces "serious questions" about his defence spending calculations a day before he meets Donald Trump in Washington.
Speaking before Parliament on Tuesday, the PM announced that the UK Government will increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 - three years earlier than originally planned.
The spending uplift is urgently needed to contain Russian aggression as America wavers over support for Ukraine and its commitment to European security.
With the announcement coming on the eve of Starmer's trip to Washington, it was quickly interpreted as a sweetener to Trump who has called on Nato members to pull their weight and increase defence spending.
Defence Secretary John Healey has hit out at the claim that the PM is cowering to the president, highlighting how the promise was made in Labour’s election manifesto but is being delivered three years early as the “world has changed”.
eir Starmer faces "serious questions" about his defence spending calculations as he attempts to persuade the President to reaffirm his comment to European security
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Whether or not it's a capitulation is beside the point as Starmer now faces a bigger problem: it could weaken his hand in Washington as he seeks to persuade the 47th President to reaffirm his commitment to Ukraine and European defence.
Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), has accused the PM of "playing silly games with numbers" as his announced spending uplift is based on inconsistent benchmarkers.
Starmer stated that defence spending would rise to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, equating to an additional £13.4 billion annually.
The planned increase in defence spending is to be funded by reducing the international aid budget from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI).
However, Ben Zaranko, the associate director of the IFS, suggested an extra 0.2 per cent of GDP was around £6billion - not the figure quoted by Starmer.
Healey acknowledged the discrepancy, admitting that in real terms, the increase would be "something over £6 billion", telling the BBC that "the definition of defence numbers can be done in different ways".
This revelation prompted James Cartlidge to declare the PM’s spending announcement had “unravelled in just 24 hours”.
A further headache came during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, when Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch questioned whether the £6billion earmarked for defence would instead be spent on leasing back the Diego Garcia military base once Starmer follows through with his plan to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
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Starmer's spending uplift falls far short of Trump's and the Ministry of Defence's expectations for Nato spending.
PAStarmer did not address this question head-on, stating that the additional defence spending is intended to enhance the UK's defence and security capabilities in Europe.
Elsewhere, a government source dismissed concerns over potential payments to Mauritius as part of the Chagos Islands agreement, arguing that there's an "orders-of-magnitude difference" between the scale of the annual increase in defence spending and any future financial commitments related to the deal, branding the comparison "misleading" and "nonsense".
Why its even worse that first thought...
While politicians clash over whether or not Starmer's figure constitutes a genuine increase in overall government expenditure or is rather a redistribution of existing funds, the greater problem not being addressed is that it falls far short of both Trump and the Ministry of Defence's expectations for Nato spending.
Arguing that the US shoulders far too much of the burden, Trump has called for NATO allies to increase their defence spending to five per cent of their GDP - a significant jump on Starmer's target of 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027.
It's unclear how this will play out in Washington on Thursday, particularly if Trump concludes that his British counterpart is pulling the wool over his eyes to score a diplomatic win back home.
The £6billion figure is also a drop in the ocean compared to what the MoD deems necessary to modernise Britain's armed forces and fulfil its Nato obligations.
According to internal calculations by the Ministry of Defense, the UK should spend 3.6 per cent of GDP on defence - a nearly £93billion-pound increase to the annual budget.
This figure is 44 per cent higher than the spending level of 2.5 per cent Starmer has set to achieve by 2027.
