Nato to force UK to lift defence spending to 3.5% of GDP to appease Trump, say sources

Defence sources believe that Britain will be forced to sign up to a target of lifting defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035 at this month’s Nato summit after a campaign by the alliance’s secretary general to keep Donald Trump onboard.One senior insider said Britain would “without a doubt” sign up to a proposal from the Nato chief, Mark Rutte, to lift allies’ defence spending, which would represent a real-terms increase of about £30bn from the Labour government’s plan.They expressed surprise that Keir Starmer had tied himself up over spending at the launch of the strategic defence review on Monday, when he refused to set a firm date when budgets would increase to 3%.The prime minister has agreed to increase defence spending from its current 2

UK to invest £2bn in drones to make army ‘10 times more lethal’

Britain will spend an extra £2bn on drones and seek to introduce weapons and tactics developed during the war in Ukraine under a strategic defence review unveiled by the government.The plan will prioritise cheap one-way attack craft and more expensive reusable systems, as well as the creation of a drone centre to share knowledge and better coordinate across the armed forces.John Healey, the defence secretary, told MPs the army would become “10 times more lethal” by combining technologies such as drones and artificial intelligence “with the heavy metal of tanks and artillery”.It was part of a wider commitment to make the UK “battle-ready” in the words of the prime minister, Keir Starmer. He argued on a visit to the BAE Systems shipyard at Govan, in Glasgow, that defence had to come above other public services

Reform UK to pilot Doge-style scheme to examine council spending

Reform UK has told council officers they will face “gross misconduct” if they obstruct an Elon Musk-style department of government efficiency unit to examine all council spending in areas they control.The party will pilot the Doge-style scheme in Kent county council, led by a team including the Brexit donor Arron Banks as well as cybersecurity entrepreneur Nathaniel Fried.The move has been criticised as “political theatre” by senior local authority figures and opposition politicians.Robert Hayward, the Conservative peer and pollster, told Politico he had written to the Electoral Commission arguing that the Reform volunteers should be scrutinised under political donation rules as a donation in kind. Lord Hayward said: “Without full disclosure, the risk is that any donation could be buying access or influence election results

Spending constrains Labour’s defence review – but no harm in gradualism

Labour’s defence review is full of contradictions. It paints a picture of a more dangerous world, with Britain facing “multiple, direct threats” to its security, particularly from nuclear-armed states such as Russia and China, and warns that the west’s “long-held military advantage is being eroded”.But when it comes to spending taxpayers’ money, the exercise is considerably more cautious. The reviewers, a team of three led by the former Nato secretary general George Robertson, accept the spending envelope given to them by the prime minister, Keir Starmer: a gradual lift in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and a looser promise to increase spending to 3% by the end of the next parliament

Defence review plans will make army ‘10 times more lethal’, says John Healey – as it happened

Healey says the government has already shown it is committed to delivering on defence.The world is more dangerous, he says.War fighting readiness means stronger deterrence. We need stronger deterrence to avoid the huge costs human and economic that wars create, and we prevent wars by being strong enough to fight and win them.He says the government will create a “new hybrid navy” by building new attack submarines, cutting-edge warships and new autonomous vessels

Growing threats, new weapons, more troops: key points of UK’s defence review

A vision of what war between the UK and another state such as Russia would look like is sketched out briefly but starkly on a page of the strategic defence review.Such a conflict could involve attacks on the armed forces in the UK and overseas, air and missile attacks on critical infrastructure, and sabotage and efforts to manipulate information and undermine social cohesion.Britain is “already under daily attack” in cyberspace with 89 “nationally significant” attacks in the year up to last September, according to the review, which calls for a response to a “a new era of threat”, underlined by, but not limited to, increasing Russian aggression.After years in which UK defence was shaped by the post-cold war era, when opponents were mainly non-state actors, the review says Britain must be ready to once again “fight and win” a full-scale war.Sixty-two recommendations are put forward by its authors: the former defence secretary and Nato chief Lord Robertson, the retired British army general Sir Richard Barrons and Dr Fiona Hill, a Russia expert and former White House adviser