Kemi Badenoch has revealed that the last Conservative government considered increasing funding for defence but decided it was impossible because the state was spending “so much on welfare.”
The Tory leader, who served as a cabinet minister in the last government, has now urged Labour to “rewire” the economy in order to now find the funds required for a defence spending uplift.
Speaking to Sky News, Badenoch said the Conservatives had looked into increasing the current expenditure from around 2.3 per cent of national income to 3 per cent, having held discussion on the topic around the cabinet table.
The former business and trade secretary said: “I remember being in cabinet, seeing if we could get to 3 per cent by 2030, and we could not make it work because we were paying so much in debt and so much on welfare.
“We’ve got to rewire our economy so we can look after our country.”
Badenoch noted that the UK is spending significantly less on defence now than it was during the Cold War, when it spent 4 per cent of GDP.
But she added: “At the moment, we can’t afford to do much more. We have got to change our economy around.”
Donald Trump has demanded Nato members spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence.
In the Conservative Party’s 2024 general election manifesto, then-PM Rishi Sunak pledged to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence. The document insisted a Conservative government, if re-elected, would have met the new target “by” or “in” 2030.
Prime minister Keir Starmer has committed to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence, but he has not yet set out a timeline for doing so.
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Speaking on Monday, Starmer told broadcasters that Europe must be committed to “playing our full part when it comes to the defence of the sovereignty of Ukraine if there’s a peace agreement, and, of course, when it comes to funding and training”.
The prime minister said: “We are going through a strategic review of defence at the moment, which is looking at the challenges and the capability, and then we’ll set out that path.
“Part of my message to our European allies is that we’ve all got to step up on both capability and on spending and funding. Now, that includes the UK, which is why I’ve made that commitment to spend more.”
Kemi Badenoch’s comments, delivered in an interview with Sky News, came after she warned of civilisational collapse during a speech on Monday morning.
Addressing attendees of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) in London, the Conservative leader declared that the ideas and culture of Western civilisation that have “dominated the world for well over two centuries” are in retreat.
Badenoch said: “This is not a crisis of values. It’s a crisis of confidence that has set in at exactly the same time that we face existential threats on the left.
“This self doubt manifests as an embarrassment of the West’s legacy and in extremis, a hatred of Western history and even its culture.
“But what about the right? We know that the West has given the world amazing ideas and values, from democracy and free markets to our banking systems, yet around us, we see so much cultural and economic decline.
“We doubt ourselves. We doubt our ability to build like our predecessors Did. We doubt liberal values of tolerance or free trade, demanding a post-liberal world.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.
Kemi Badenoch praises Trump and ‘populism’ in speech warning of civilisational threats
Source: Politics
