The US Push for Higher Defence Spending
Just days after taking office, US President Donald Trump addressed the World Economic Forum (WEF), calling on NATO countries to increase their defence spending from 2% of GDP to 5% of GDP. For a long time, Trump has insisted that NATO countries need to pull their own weight and contribute more to supporting Ukraine against Russia.
On 12 February 2025, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed this pressure campaign in his opening speech at the Ukraine Defense Contact group and instructed the European countries to step up. Hegseth told the leaders of NATO countries that this commitment involves “leveling with your citizens about the threat facing Europe”. He asked NATO countries to convince their populations of the Russian threat so that they would agree to greatly increasing defence spending (from 2% GDP to 5% GDP) at the expense of social support and crippling austerity. “Part of this is speaking frankly with your people about how this threat can only be met by spending more on defence”, Hegseth said.
Fearmongering about Russia to Justify Austerity
On 25 February 2025, the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave a highly dramatic speech in which he characterised Putin as a tyrant and drummed up fears about a Russian invasion of Europe. Starmer painted a dystopian picture of the war to his countrymen. He said: “Just imagine you are walking to work. Taking your kids to school. Just another February morning, like any other. Then suddenly - missiles. Sirens. Explosions. Not in the distance. Not on TV. In your town. Hitting your community. Killing your friends. An invading army, in your country”. In an alarming manner, Starmer warned that if Russia was not stopped, British waters, airspace, cyberspace, and even the streets, would be under attack.
He then used this fear propaganda to justify increasing the UK's defence spending from 2% to 2.5% of GDP, which is approximately £13.4 billion per year, and promised to increase defence spending further. Starmer smugly said in his address that this is the biggest increase in the UK's defence spending since the end of the Cold War and vowed to set clear pathways to increase it to 3% GDP in the next Parliament. He admitted that the increase in defence spending would hurt the people, signalling austerity measures and cuts to welfare spending, but described it as a necessity in order to stop Russian tanks from rolling down the streets of the UK.
The UK Bows to US Pressure
Less than two weeks later, on 6 March, the UK's Secretary of Defence John Healy reported to Hegseth that the UK has stepped up to the US challenge and has increased defence spending. Healy also gloated to Hegseth that this was the UK's biggest increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War.
Beyond the military budget increase, Starmer has also expressed interest in deploying British forces as part of a NATO-led peacekeeping operation in Ukraine. The UK Government had a choice: prioritise the wellbeing of its own citizens, or cater to the demands of NATO and the US. It chose the latter.
The UK's Staggering Commitment to the Proxy War against Russia
As of 28 February 2025, the UK has provided substantial financial, military, and material support to Ukraine in response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Since February 2022, the UK has splurged on £7.8 billion in military aid, £5 billion in non-military aid, and hundreds of millions of pounds in other expenses. Further, under the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) loan agreement with Ukraine, the UK announced a £2.26 billion loan to bolster Ukraine's war chest. The UK also expects to provide £4.5 billion in a military boost to Ukraine’s front line this year, which is more than in any previous year. Additionally, in July 2024, the UK pledged to sustain £3 billion a year in military aid to Ukraine until 2030/31 and, in their own words, “for as long as it takes”.
Who Pays for This? The Disabled and the Elderly
While Starmer mentioned in his address that the money for increased defence spending would come from cuts to foreign aid (from 0.5% GNI to 0.3% GNI), it is only part of the story. The extra £13.4 billion for the defence budget cannot be fully offset by foreign aid cuts alone. Cuts to foreign aid only account for £6 billion. Both the Tories and the Labour Party are unwilling to find the money for the defence budget through borrowing or increased taxes to the ultrarich. Instead, they are cutting welfare benefits and robbing the disabled and the elderly.
Cuts to Disability Benefits and Winter Fuel Payments
After delivering the overly dramatic speech justifying a historic defence budget increase, the Starmer Government announced extensive welfare cuts to disabled people and announced the biggest cuts to incapacity benefits and disability benefits on record, penalising some of the most vulnerable people in the country. This is supposed to save an additional £5-£6 billion.
So, the money for the biggest increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War comes from the biggest welfare cut in history meant to assist the disabled, ill, and incapacitated people.
This is in addition to the savings of £1.4 billion that the Starmer Government made by cutting off the winter fuel payment to pensioners. This is a cruel decision considering that the current UK electricity price is still 43% higher than it was before the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022. The Government's own estimates indicated that 780,000 pensioners who should be entitled to the winter fuel payment will lose out, and 71% of people with long-term illnesses and disabilities, which comes to 1.6 million disabled people, will lose their entitlement. Despite the move potentially pushing a 100,000 pensioners below the poverty line, Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, said the Labour Government was forced to take difficult decisions to balance the books in light of the £22 billion black hole that they inherited. The irony isn't lost when she proudly backs boosting military aid to Ukraine.
Under the proposal to cut disability benefits, even individuals with severe disabilities who are classified as unable to work will likely face financial losses. At the same time, many people will lose their Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefits, which are intended to cover the extra costs of living with a disability and are not tied to employment status.
Liz Sayce, the Chief Executive of Disability Rights UK, pointed out that under the proposed plans, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) expects that 428,000 disabled people who currently get the higher rate mobility component will either receive the lower amount or lose it altogether. This could lead to many disabled people losing their car under the Motability Scheme and this will mean that they can no longer get out and about or even get to their workplace. These cuts will not only impoverish disabled people, but also take away their independence and their ability to find and retain work, which is counter-productive to the stated goals of the UK Government.
Further, the UK Government published its Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper consultation. This paper proposes to entirely scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) by 2028 and to assess any extra financial support for health conditions in Universal Credit (UC) via a single assessment that will decide the amount based on the impact of the disability on daily living and not on the ability to work. According to Resolution Foundation, an independent think tank focused on improving living standards for those on low-to-middle incomes, these welfare changes could result in losses around £10,300 per year for a couple on UC where one person is disabled and the other is a full-time carer. Even according to the figures in the UK Government's own Impact Statement, this proposal will result in 3.2 million families losing an average of £1,720 per year and push an extra 250,000 people into poverty as a direct result.
Several disability support groups have described these measures as penalising, cruel, and catastrophic for disabled people and their families.
Billions for War, Pennies for the Poor
The UK Government’s decision to funnel billions into the war effort while stripping away basic support for its most vulnerable citizens is a national disgrace. The tens of billions of pounds that the UK has spent and pledged to give to Ukraine includes a £400 million commitment toward Ukraine's energy security.
How can the Starmer administration justify supporting Ukraine's energy infrastructure whilst condemning over a million disabled and elderly pensioners in his own country to freeze in winter?
A day before Starmer made the dramatic war speech and hinted at austerity measures, the UK Defence Secretary John Healy announced a £20 million package towards rehabilitation hospitals for disabled and injured Ukrainian soldiers.
How can the UK Government justify cutting off disabled British people from their Personal Independence Payments in order to support disabled soldiers in Ukraine?
James Taylor, the executive director of disability equality charity Scope said: “The biggest cuts to disability benefits on record should shame the Government to its core. They are choosing to penalise some of the poorest people in our society. Almost half of families in poverty include someone who is disabled”.
How can the UK Government justify taking away billions of pounds meant to support some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in his own country to prop up the war machine against Russia?
The answer is clear: they cannot.
