Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks with soldiers on how they locate and plan on enemy territory in front of a mock-up of a military encampment during a visit at a Dutch marine training centre, as part of the UK-Netherlands Joint Amphibious Force in Rotterdam, on the sidelines of the two-day NATO’s Heads of State and Government summit in The Hague on June 24, 2025.
Kin Cheung / POOL / AFP
How can Britain defend other nations if it can barely defend itself?
Britain’s Labour government has pledged to send troops to Ukraine as part of a ‘peacekeeping’ force, as well as to Greenland to protect it from the likes of Russia and China. It is even dreaming—this being the operative word—of taking Vladimir Putin “into custody and [holding him to] account for war crimes.”
Indeed, those at the top appear to be operating in dreamland.
The head of the UK armed forces recognises, however, that the shrunken military is strapped for cash, cannot deliver its current ambitions and may have to cut—or, at the very least, delay—certain programmes.
Speaking to the House of Commons defence committee on Monday, he said:
I’ll be completely honest with you, we will not be able to do everything that we would wish to do as quickly as we might want to do it.
If we wanted to do everything that’s currently in the programme and do all the extra things in the [strategic defence review], could we do that with the budget that we have got? The answer’s no.
This is no surprise given recent reports, which the government refused to deny, that the Ministry of Defence is facing a £28 billion (€32.3bn) funding shortfall over the next four years. The department’s investment plan was supposed to have been completed last autumn but is now not expected to emerge until spring. Would anyone bat an eyelid if it were pushed back again?
Reports over recent years have also revealed that Britain’s deterrent nuclear submarine fleet is “no longer fit for purpose” and is only getting worse and that its air defences are “insufficient.” Altogether, simulations show the Army as a whole would run out of ammunition in just eight days if it were to actually go into combat.
The system is hopelessly weak and would struggle to defend Britain itself, never mind any other nation.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
