The UK defence secretary repeatedly swerved questions on whether Britain should heed calls from the United States to significantly ramp up defence spending.
John Healey also failed to guarantee that the UK armed forces would not face further cuts if the government merely sticks to a pledge to inch up the amount of money invested in the military to 2.5% of GDP from around 2.3%.
Donald Trump has said NATO allies should be spending 5% of national income on their armed forces, while the new head of the alliance has said the level should be “north of 3%”.
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In an interview on Wednesday, Sky News asked Mr Healey seven times whether the UK would or should increase defence spending beyond 2.5%.
Each time, he stuck to the official line.
“Everyone accepts that we need to spend more on defence,” Mr Healey said, speaking at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, where he chaired a meeting on supporting Ukraine.
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“We are a government that was elected just last year with a commitment to increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP – that’s a level we have not spent in the UK since 2010 when Labour was last in government.”
Pressed on whether this was enough given there is now a war in Europe, the defence secretary pointed to how all European nations are expanding their defence expenditure as well as their support to Ukraine.
He was speaking as the UK finalises a strategic defence review, which the government has promised to release in the first half of this year.
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Yet the calculations about defence capabilities and cuts differ wildly depending on the size of the budget.
The work was ordered to deliver answers for a defence budget that will increase to 2.5% during the course of the parliament – even though the government has yet to commit to a timeline.
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However, defence insiders widely acknowledge this is nowhere near enough given the size of the threat and the need for the UK and European allies to take on more of the burden of securing Europe, as the United States under Mr Trump shifts attention elsewhere.
Mr Healey brushed off concerns that the UK’s relationship with the US might be damaged if it fails to boost the defence budget to a level closer to Mr Trump’s demands.
“I’m deeply confident in our relationship with the US,” he said. “We have a security relationship which we do unique things that nobody else does together. We will deepen that, we will strengthen that.”
