Rachel Reeves is leaving Britain defenceless

Yahoo

17 hours ago

Last week, the Prime Minister said that we 'need to see the biggest shift in mindset in my lifetime: to put security and defence front and centre – to make it the fundamental organising principle of government'.
The unfolding crisis in the Middle East underscores the need to do so. Now, more than ever, our national security must be the Government's overriding priority, trampling on any other competing demands for government money and ministers' time. But it isn't. This noble organising principle seems not to apply where it matters most: the Government's economic strategy.
In her spending review this week, the Chancellor gave us her own definition of security: 'securonomics'. This ugly word, reeking of socialist greyness and uniformity, means – to quote Rachel Reeves – 'government must step up to provide security for working people and resilience for our national economy.'
She is right about the need for economic resilience. For years, it has been clear that, in a turbulent world, the scale and structure of debt, combined with anaemic growth, makes our economy highly vulnerable to global shocks. Yet instead of rebuilding a fiscal buffer, the Chancellor has left us with a fiscal wafer so thin it could crack at the merest tap. Instead of bringing debt down, it will be higher at the end of the Parliament than today – and the cost of servicing it is already more than we spend on defence. And instead of supporting growth – critical to everything – the Government has suffocated it with higher taxes.
Next, how has the Chancellor helped deliver 'security for working people'? For most working people, job security – the ability to find and keep a steady job – is key. Yet job insecurity is rising. By raising National Insurance on employers – a £25bn jobs tax – Rachel Reeves has provoked the biggest fall in employment in five years. Unemployment is ticking up.
The broader definition of 'security' obviously encompasses our nation's defence. Although defence spending is set to rise to 2.5 per cent GDP during this Parliament, this is clearly not enough. At the upcoming Nato summit, the UK will be pressed to raise it to at least 3.5 per cent. But in Wednesday's spending review, what was the Chancellor's 'choice'? To give the NHS, not defence, a bigger slice of government largesse. 90 per cent of the total increase in spending from 2025-6 will go to health. The NHS will see a record cash investment: real-terms, day to day spending is set to increase by 3 per cent per year, costing an extra £29 billion.
A government that sees defence as the organising principle of government would not have made that choice. It would have made the case that we need to move from a state that prioritises welfare to one that prepares for warfare. And as part of a strategy to put debt on a gradual downward path, it would have made tough decisions on spending overall – starting with a reform of incapacity and disability benefits, which now cost more than the defence budget.
Instead, as her speech took us from spending more on affordable homes, to car production to training to buses in Rochdale, the Chancellor disorganised her Downing Street neighbour's organising principle, showing it the respect Tracey Emin had for her bed.
There is only one conclusion one can draw from all this. Last week, when the Prime Minister said we need to make security and defence 'the organising principle of government', he left off four words: 'for this week only'.
Lord Bridges of Headley is a former government minister; he was Chairman of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee between January 2022 and January 2025
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