Keeping the UK Safe
As the Defence Secretary resigns, we must reconsider all the threats we are defending against
Keir Starmer is once again under threat, this time because the Defence Secretary John Healey and Armed Forces Minister Al Carns both resigned over defence budget constraints.
This has sparked a national conversation about what threats we face, and how we can sufficiently raise funds to insulate ourselves from them.
When we think of defence, we think of traditional methods to defend against ‘bad actors’ ; increasing military personnel, investing in new technology, bolstering cybersecurity etc. These are all essential, and there undoubtably is a huge threat to the UK from certain ‘bad actors’ (e.g. Russia).
But what happens when there is no ‘bad actor’ to defend against?
I went on BBC Radio 5 live with Nikki Campbell to talk about UK defence — and why the threats we face are far more varied than tanks and missiles.
We're at the onset of what could be the worst El Niño ever recorded, bringing higher global temperatures, chaotic weather, and the likelihood of more severe floods in the next 12–18 months than this country has ever experienced. When we talk about defending Britain, we have to mean defending against all of these dangers. As shown in a suppressed National Security Assessment report, ‘Global ecosystem degradation and collapse threatens UK national security and prosperity’ through biodiversity collapse, crop failures, and food shortages.
It is time that climate threats got treated with as much severity as traditional militaristic threats.
Any foreign actor could attack, but climate breakdown is here.
 | A guest post by
|
If Russia can't invade Ukraine successfully, is it likely to take on the UK and therefore the whole of NATO? As WELL as Ukraine? That seems so unlikely. But the Climate and Nature crises have already trundled their tanks onto our lawns, so are an unavoidable threat as you say. Could it be that Lord George Robertson's irrational exhuberance for defence spending is due to him being paid by The Cohen Group where he serves as a Senior Counsellor for this consulting and lobbying firm, which frequently advises aerospace and defense companies? Threats of war fatten defense companies.
Surely it's a false comparison between the social situation during ww2 and the near future. Britain in the 1930's was a class ridden basket case in many ways at the fag end of its empire. But, despite this, the nation was a valued entity considered worth defending by all classes and hence largely UNIFIABLE under Churchill. The situation of social and normative fragmentation in 2026 bears no relation say to 1939. Even a Churchill would be unable to generate the necessary rhetoric and leadership amongst the heterogeneous populations now in conflict up and down the land to unify us against the polycrises we face.