Is Britain Abandoning Military Defense To Fund More Socialism?

It’s a curious position for European governments; for the past few years they have been rattling their sabers over the Russian war in Ukraine, calling for boots on the ground.  It’s the kind of intervention that would automatically trigger WWIII.  Yet, these same governments are completely unprepared in terms of military spending, armament and training.  

When the British government refused to join the US blockade against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, almost no one cared because the British have allowed their navy to decay into irrelevance.  Twenty years ago, they had nearly 50 active fighting vessels and today they are down to 22 vessels.  Britain’s GDP per capita is currently lower than the state of Alabama.  And, they keep importing thousands upon thousands of third world migrants, with the vast majority relying on taxpayer funded subsidies. 

When given a choice between funding the British military or funding more immigrants, the government has chosen to fund more immigrants.  Britain has increased welfare spending by 16% in the past 5 years alone.    

A year ago the Brits, under pressure from the Trump Administration, took steps to expand their defense budget in order to better meet an increase in NATO obligations.  Multiple European countries have been avoiding these obligations for a long time, instead relying on the US to foot the bill while they enjoyed extra cash to spend on subsidized programs.  However, the British increase in their defense budget doesn’t mean much if the military is not actually allowed to spend any money.

The British Army has been ordered to pause most “non-essential” collective training (large live-fire drills, tank/Apache exercises, etc.) for UK-based units that are on standby (only 4% of British units are actually deployed).  The immediate reason is a shortage of cash in the Ministry of Defence’s day-to-day resource budget (RDEL). Fuel and ammunition prices have risen faster than planned, meaning routine training budgets drawn up years earlier no longer cover the same activity.

Their defense budget expansion is not even keeping up with inflation.   Leftists in the UK, of course, blame Trump.  But inflation in Europe hit well before Trump returned to office and the lack of accountability on the part of British progressives is not going to save them from the fallout.

Military officials warned two years ago that British training standards were outdated by a decade.  In June of this year, Defense Secretary John Healey quit after government refusals to provide adequate funding for training.  

Healey is now the Chancellor, and he’s due to present a budget in October that still has yet to find roughly £1.4 billion a year for the next three years to fund a plan stays within the government’s fiscal rules. The military is required to create a budget without diverting money from health or education programs. The training pause is a short-term cash-management measure – Longer-term funding questions remain unresolved.

An easy way to stockpile significant funding for British defense would be to stop all immigration and remigrate millions of third world residents who are feeding on government welfare.  But this is something the current leadership will never do.  Multiculturalism is their priority, for reasons that remain a mystery. 

On the bright side, less funding and less capability for Europe’s armies means a lesser chance that they will be shipped off to Ukraine to start a world war.