It is hard to take this Labour government seriously or literally. In presenting its much-heralded strategic defence review and calling for a new national resolve, it not only treated parliament with contempt – making big policy announcements outside the House of Commons – it gave the country ludicrously exaggerated claims for a “defence dividend”: the idea that increasing investment in the defence sector will boost growth and create high-quality jobs. It failed to explain why money for arms should be a better stimulus for the economy than, say, funding nurseries.
The government claims that the world has become so much more dangerous that a “root and branch” review of defence is needed. It claims that transformation and innovation are essential. Except there is very little that is innovative or transformative about the new approach. The programme it has come up with is a doubling down on the old – on the renovation of the “sovereign nuclear warhead” programme (to be mounted on very un-sovereign US-made and maintained missiles), on up to 12 new nuclear powered submarines, on cyber and drones, which have been staples in defence procurement discussion for well over a decade. The US remains, despite everything, Britain’s “first partner”, with whom ties should be strengthened. This is no great rupture with the past. And, as many have pointed out, there is a huge gap between the rhetoric and the spending, which will merely increase from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP.
How are we to explain this? Labour has relished the opportunity to present itself as the party of rearmament, just as Tony Blair gleefully believed he was the first to make the Labour party a war party. Its unseemly enthusiasm is reflected in Keir Starmer’s childish talk of “a battle-ready, armour-clad nation” or of British “warriors”. The prime minister even claimed “we will innovate and accelerate innovation to a wartime pace” and become “the fastest innovator in Nato”. This is Labour wanting to become the Tory party of its imagination, to purge itself of the stain of social democracy, to indulge itself in nationalist nostalgia, not least for wartime.
There was a time when Labour was proud to claim it was the party of the welfare state. More recently, the Labour right has insisted that it was also the party of the “warfare state” – Nye Bevan’s NHS is proudly paired with Ernie Bevin’s Nato (Bevin was an architect of the north Atlantic alliance). There is more truth in this narrative than many social democrats care to admit: Labour’s postwar government pushed defence spending to around 10% of GDP, under pressure from the Americans. What is too often forgotten is that those in the know knew that such levels of rushed expenditure would not produce what was promised and would damage underlying British growth. Among them were then minister of labour and national service, Nye Bevan, Harold Wilson, president of the Board of Trade, and John Freeman, a junior minister in the Ministry of Supply (that is, of armaments). They resigned and they were proved right.
The UK did enjoy a so-called peace dividend from the mid-1950s, as defence expenditure fell relative to GDP and welfare spending. The Labour party now appears to believe that military procurement will generate growth. Khem Rogaly, a researcher at Common Wealth, a progressive thinktank, has studied the relations of defence spending and jobs, and observes that “this is not a serious industrial or jobs strategy”.
Still, Starmer claims a “defence dividend” will result from a 0.2 percentage point of GDP increase in spending and that there will be national and regional renewal through arms contracts. This feeds nostalgia for (male) skilled jobs, but it is not a serious proposition. In any case, there is no reason at all to believe that a defence dividend for the economy would be higher than a green energy, housing, NHS, or university dividend – and plenty to believe it will be a lot less. In any case, if defence itself is really as important as they say, there will be very good reasons to continue buying weapons overseas, which will happen in practice, instead of pining for national sufficiency. It might be sensible to give the defence dividend to those with a track record of successful design and manufacture, for example, German tank and gun makers, even Ukrainian drone makers.
There are some things to welcome in the government’s announcements and the strategic defence review itself. There is a palpable sense that things have gone very wrong, that it is no longer appropriate to think of the UK as having by far and away the best armed services in Europe. The usual dishonest superlatives are lacking. There is nothing “world-beating” here, and only a little is world-leading. The once routine claim that the UK is a force for good in the world is missing. There is recognition that public investment in factories is needed. “Nato first” is better than Tory-era fantasies of an Indo-Pacific tilt.
But the fundamental problem remains – there is no thinking about alternative foreign policies or defence policies; the government is still focused on UK defence ties to the Middle East and east Asia. For every sensible proposal, such as the need to build stockpile weapons and improve the procurement machinery, there is a failure to think through the UK’s real place in the world, and to face up to the failures of the defence and foreign policy of the past quarter century.
Keir Starmer wants to “mobilise the nation in a common cause” and claims that “nothing works unless we all work together”. But that requires a genuine and serious consensus about aims and consistency in principles. Supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and fighting against the illegal Russian invasion and violations of the laws of war, is a good thing. But it has been noticed by many that the UK has been steadfast in its logistical and political support to an ally, Israel, in illegal occupation of territories that are subject to the war crime of collective punishment on an appalling scale. A root and branch review is indeed desperately needed, but that can only happen if we have a political class prepared to recognise that the old formulas will no longer do. It is easy to talk the talk of change and innovation; achieving that requires a genuine rupture with the assumptions of the past and present.
David Edgerton is Hans Rausing professor of the history of science and technology and professor of modern British history at King’s College London. He is the author of The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: a Twentieth Century History
