Sir Keir Starmer has been told he needs to increase UK defence spending dramatically to counter the threat of Putin – or face the prospect of his Premiership being consigned to the ‘dustbin of history’.
The stark warning by former head of the Army Lord Dannatt coincided with a call from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky for the creation of an ‘army of Europe’ to replace US troops if Donald Trump retreats from the continent.
Senior Army commanders meanwhile privately told The Mail on Sunday that the Government should ‘mothball’ both the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers, with the money saved diverted into extra land forces.
One suggested Europe may need to be defended from attack within a year.
The moves follow President Trump’s shock move to start peace talks over Ukraine with Vladimir Putin, coupled with his warnings that European nations needed to be more self-sufficient on defence.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference yesterday, President Zelensky said the continent should prepare for the loss of Washington’s protection.
He declared: ‘I really believe the time has come – the armed forces of Europe must be created… From now on things will be different and Europe needs to adjust to that.’
However, Lord Dannatt warned that the UK military was now so ‘run-down’ it would be unable to make a proper contribution to a European peacekeeping force which would probably have to be 100,000 strong.
He said: ‘The UK would have to supply quite a proportion of that and we really couldn’t do it.
‘Our military is so run-down at the present moment, numerically, and as far as capability and equipment is concerned, it would potentially be quite embarrassing.’
The crossbench peer, who was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009, issued an extraordinary challenge to Sir Keir to increase defence spending from its current level of 2.3 per cent of GDP to as much as 3.5 per cent.
He warned that the current defence review – being led by former Labour Defence Secretary George Robertson and which is based on spending rising to no more than 2.5 per cent of GDP – will fail unless the PM and Chancellor Rachel Reeves find more money.
Lord Dannatt called on Sir Keir and Ms Reeves to ‘look at themselves in the mirror and look at their priorities and say, yes, health, education, roads, infrastructure are important, but actually defence and the security of this nation are more important’.
And speaking on the BBC Radio 4’s The Week In Westminster, he urged them to ‘find ways of producing more money well beyond 2.5 per cent towards 3 or 3.5 per cent for starters on our defence budget’.
If that didn’t happen, ‘then this Strategic Defence Review is going to be hollow, it’s going to be a failure. And, frankly, it’ll consign Keir Starmer to the bin of history.’
Sources close to the review have denied reports that it will call for one of the Navy’s aircraft carriers – which together cost more than £6 billion – to be mothballed.
But one serving major-general last night privately called for both to taken out of service, saying: ‘It costs more than £90 million a year just to run a carrier.
‘Put them both in mothballs and the money saved can be allocated to the land campaign which is going to happen in the next 12 months. [The carriers] can always be regenerated.’
Separately, General Sir Richard Shirreff – formerly Nato’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, raised the prospect of the UK having to return to ‘levels of defence spending not seen since the Cold War’ to help fund a Nato ‘band of deterrence’.
But he said: ‘It’s a sacrifice that’s got to be made because unless it’s made, we are not going to be able to enjoy peace.’
He added: ‘Russia is never going to give up its intent to remove Ukraine from the map as a sovereign state. And that once it’s finished… it will move on elsewhere.’
But also speaking at the Munich conference yesterday, Foreign Secretary David Lammy stuck to the plan of working towards boosting defence spending to 2.5 per cent even as he acknowledged: ‘If Ukraine were to fail, the costs would be considerably more.
‘We were spending on average seven per cent of our GDP in the Cold War and upwards. So don’t think that actually not meeting the [2.5 per cent] challenge now somehow saves money down the line.’
However, Malcolm Richards, a former captain in the Royal Logistic Corps, warned 2.5 per cent ‘will deliver nothing’, adding: ‘If he doesn’t raise spending further, I fear the UK will pay the price and Starmer will be remembered as the man who failed the nation and cast himself into oblivion.’
President Trump has indicated that it is unlikely Ukraine will get its key ambition to join Nato – an aim fiercely opposed by Putin.
But former PM Boris Johnson said: ‘A sovereign country cannot be constrained in choosing which organisations it wishes to join.
‘Ukraine is entirely sensible in wanting to join Nato. That process is a matter for Ukraine and Nato’.
Meanwhile, French president Emmanuel Macron is preparing to host an emergency summit of European leaders in Paris, which Sir Keir is expected to attend.
The Ministry of Defence said: ‘Everyone accepts we must spend more on defence. That is why the MoD budget was increased by nearly £3 billion at the latest Budget and why we will set the path to 2.5 per cent in the spring.’
‘The Strategic Defence Review is looking hard at the threats we face and the capabilities we need to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.’