You shouldn’t trust either Labour OR the Tories with the UK’s defence
Rishi Sunak has tried to claim that Labour would make the UK less safe – a perennial Tory election assertion. But you shouldn’t trust either Labour or the Tories with the UK’s defence.
Sunak has said Labour will not match a Tory pledge to boost defence spending by 2.5 per cent by 2030. That’s isn’t making the UK less safe, because that could only be suggested by a cut in spending.
Instead, it would be more correct to say Labour would make the UK less able to start or join pointless foreign adventures.
But even this is stretching accuracy because Labour has said its policy is to meet the same spending commitment when conditions allow (this is itself a false claim if it depends on the availability of money; the UK government can always provide itself with all the money it needs).
And finally there is the way the government has said it will fund the increased spending commitment – by shrinking the size of the civil service.
The Tories are saying they will destroy the country’s ability to run a government in order to prepare it for war.
Previous cuts to civil service staff have caused huge problems in the delivery of services. This Writer is sure you can think of plenty of examples.
Sunak said refocusing government spending on defence was necessary because of a threat from an “authoritarian axis” of invented bogeymen in Russia, Iran, North Korea and China.
If there are any countries that could be described as an “authoritarian axis”, then the UK is one of them, alongside the United States and Israel. Look what these three countries – including This Writer’s own – have done to Gaza.
And remember that Labour has supported the genocide of tens of thousands of innocent people in Gaza to the hilt. Talk that Israel should do more to protect civilians is just hot air without action to force change, and that simply isn’t coming, despite Labour having plenty of diplomatic levers to pull. What’s the point of Labour Friends of Israel if it can’t exert influence?
These people must think we were all born yesterday. If significant numbers of us vote either Conservative or Labour in the general election (and no, it isn’t just a choice between the two), then they’ll be right.
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The UK military budget is already one of the biggest in the world. No need to increase it.
Sunak wants the next Labour government to waste money on the military so that it cannot then be spent on things that benefit ordinary people. It is a cynical ploy but Starmer will be only to happy to play along.
‘too happy’.