Starmer’s ‘corrosive complacency’ on defence has put UK in peril, says ex-Nato chief

The British government has shown a “corrosive complacency towards defence” and put the UK “in peril”, according to a government adviser, in fierce criticisms of Keir Starmer’s military policy.

The former Nato secretary general and author of the government’s strategic defence review, George Robertson, believes Starmer was “not willing to make the necessary investment”, the Financial Times has reported.

In addition, the former defence secretary will warn that the Iran war “has to be a rude wake-up call” during a lecture in Salisbury on Tuesday.

“We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe … Britain’s national security and safety is in peril,” he will say in his speech.

Lord Robertson, who led Nato from 1999 to 2003, will also accuse “non-military experts in the Treasury” of “vandalism”. “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

The government’s blueprint for proposals to fund the strategic defence review, including a 10-year defence investment plan by last autumn, have been repeatedly postponed amid warnings that the military faces a £28bn funding gap over the next four years.

The Ministry of Defence, the Treasury and Downing Street have not reached an agreement about how to proceed, according to sources.

Robertson believes spending cuts in other departments may be required to boost defence funding. In his speech, he will say that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, “used a mere 40 words on defence in over an hour” in her budget speech last year, while last month “in the spring statement she used none”.

He will add: “There is a corrosive complacency today in Britain’s political leadership. Lip service is paid to the risks, the threats, the bright red signals of danger – but even a promised national conversation about defence can’t be started.”

In February Luke Pollard, the minister for defence readiness and industry, told the Guardian that the plan was “a bigger task than many people outside defence realise”.

It would mean “fundamentally changing the shape of our armed forces, so pivoting, in particular, towards more autonomy”, he said, while also stressing the need to refill military stockpiles sent to Ukraine in recent years. “It is not a simple matter of just replacing tank A with tank B.”

Robertson said he would cite the country’s inability to deploy more than one Royal Navy warship to the Mediterranean within the first fortnight of the Iran war to illustrate the UK’s complacency towards defence.

In the speech, he will warn that the country faces not just shortages of military kit, but “crises in logistics, engineering, cyber, ammunition, training and medical resources”.

Last week the defence secretary, John Healey, exposed a covert Russian submarine operation targeting critical undersea infrastructure around UK waters.

A government spokesperson said: “We are delivering on the strategic defence review to meet the threats we face.

“It is backed by the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war, with a total of over £270bn being invested across this parliament.”

The government was finalising the defence investment plan and would publish it as soon as possible, the spokesperson added.