UK accelerates defence investment to reach 2.5% by 2027

The United Kingdom will increase defense spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027 at the expense of the foreign aid budget, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday.

“We will fulfill our commitment to spend 2.5% of GDP on defense, but we will bring it forward to reach that level in 2027 and we will maintain it throughout the rest of this legislature,” which ends in 2029, he revealed, during a speech in parliament.

Starmer said that, depending on economic and budgetary conditions and other strategic and operational needs, the aim is to increase this figure to 3% during a next term, if he is re-elected.

This increase, “in the short term, can only be financed through difficult choices and, in this case, that means that we will reduce our spending on development aid, from the current 0.5% of Gross National Income [GNI] to 0.3% in 2027”.

“We have to change our stance on national security because a unique challenge demands a unique response. This requires some extremely difficult and painful choices,” he lamented.

Starmer called it “the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War”, needed to maintain support for Ukraine’s defence against Russia.

“We must stand by Ukraine, because if we do not achieve lasting peace, economic instability and threats to our security will only increase. And so as the nature of this conflict changes, as it has in recent weeks, our response becomes clearer, a new era that we must face,” he said.

As a member of NATO, the UK has committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence expenditure and the latest NATO estimates show that the UK will have spent 2.3% of GDP on defence in 2024.

Labour’s 2024 election programme promised a rise to 2.5% of GDP for defence, but Starmer has so far not committed to a specific timeframe for achieving this.

According to Starmer, from 2027, the Government plans to spend an additional £13.4 billion (€16.2 billion) on defence every year.

From this year onwards, information and security services will be included in the defense budget, increasing expenditure to 2.6% of GDP.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch welcomed the move and the reduction in the foreign aid budget and repeated a suggestion made over the weekend to also cut spending on social security.

“Can the Prime Minister say with confidence that 2.5% by 2027 is enough? Because we need to look at exactly how we are going to finance this. The Prime Minister must not raise taxes any further, as this will destroy our economy,” he warned.

The British government's announcement comes days before Keir Starmer is due to visit Washington to meet the US President on Thursday to try to convince Donald Trump that security guarantees are needed for any ceasefire deal with Russia in Ukraine.