Key events
Q: [From Lizzy Buchan from the Daily Mirror] Won’t cutting the aid budget harm efforts to curb irregular migration?
Starmer says this is not a decision he wanted to make. The government will continue its efforts in areas like Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine.
He says vulnerable people would be hit hardest by conflict.
And that’s the end of the press conference.
Q: [From Harry Cole from the Sun] What did you make of the US voting with North Korea, Iran and Russia at the UN last night on Ukraine?
Starmer says the record of the UK government is clear on Ukraine.
He will go to see President Trump, he says. He says he wants to ensure they take the relationship between the two countries “from strength to strength”. That is more important than commenting on individual resolutions at the UN, he says.
Q: [From Jason Groves from the Daily Mail] Can you change President Trump’s mind about Ukraine? And is this a European effort to lobby him?
Starmer says he has spoken to President Macron this afternoon. And he is hosting a number of countries this weekend, he says – confirming what Donald Tusk said earlier. (See 11.53am.)
But he says the US alliance, and the alliance with European partners, are both important.
Starmer accuses Farage of ‘fawning over Putin’
Christopher Hope from GB News says this policy is almost identical to a Reform UK one.
Hope asks Starmer if he is turning into Nigel Farage.
Starmer replies:
Nigel Farage didn’t even turn up to the debate in parliament today. Nigel Farage is fawning over Putin. That’s not patriotism. That is not what working people need.
Q; [From the BBC’s Chris Mason] What do you say to people who think President Trump is deciding UK policy?
Starmer says for months he has been sitting in meetings saying the UK must spend more on defence. He says Trump has been saying the UK needs to increase spending. He goes on:
And I agree with him. It chimes with my thinking on this.
Q: [From ITV’s Carl Dinnen] Would you be making this decision now if you were not going to Washington? And are you cutting aid to please Trump?
Starmer says this decision is necessary, but he says he has brought it forward.
He does not address the point about aid.
Starmer is now taking questions.
Q: [From Sky’s Beth Rigby] Haven’t you just been bounced into this by President Trump? And you sound like a PM on a war footing. Should people be alarmed?
Starmer says this is a signficant moment. It is a moment where we have to “fight for peace”.
On the timing, he says people have known for the last three years this was necessary.
I think in our heart of hearts, we will know that this decision has been coming for three years, since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. The last few weeks have accelerated my thinking on when we needed to make this announcement.
The Starmer opening statement is not adding anything new to what he told MPs earlier. But it is a bit shorter.
Keir Starmer holds press conference
Keir Starmer is making the opening statement at his press conference now.
It is similar to what he told the Commons earlier. He starts recalling the optimism people felt when the Berlin wall came down. And now he is talking about the threat posed by Vladimir Putin.
Former Tory defence secretary Ben Wallace says Starmer’s defence spending rise ‘weak’ and ‘desertion of leadership’
Ben Wallace, the former Tory defence secretary, has described the increase in defence spending announced by Keir Starmer as a “weak commitment”.
extra 0.2% of GDP by 2027 on Defence?? A staggering desertion of leadership. Tone deaf to dangers of the world and demands of the United States. Such a weak commitment to our security and Nation puts us all at risk
CND has opposed the increase in defence spending. In a statement, its general secretary Sophie Bolt says:
Starmer’s announcement to increase military spending to 2.5% by 2027 – an additional £13.4bn annually – at the expense of overseas aid, reflects a Trump-style of international priorities: driving war and militarism whilst abandoning international obligations to halt global hunger and climate devastation. It represents a much more dangerous and damaging role for Britain in the world.
Shashank Joshi, the Economist’s defence editor, is making the same point on social media.
The UK’s ‘2.5% of GDP by 2027’ announcement is welcome. But let’s be clear. That trajectory essentially allows the MoD to maintain programmes & plug growing holes in existing force structure, rather than any dramatic change, such as backfilling for American assets in Europe.
More dodgy maths, too. “An extra 0.2% of GDP is around £6bn [i.e.] the cut to the aid budget. Yet [Starmer] trumpeted a £13 billion increase in defence spending…seems to make sense if one thinks the defence budget would otherwise have been frozen”
These are from Mark Urban, the defence and security commentator, on the increase in defence spending announced by Keir Starmer. He has been posting on social media.
Some clarity at last on UK defence spending increases – PM Starmer announced the symbolic 2.5% of GDP target will be reached by 2027 instead of 2032 as the Treasury had been proposing. He also said that a much larger increase, to 3% of GDP would happen longer term 1/
but what about funding the MoD’s usual gap between the projects it’s running and what it can actually afford (the black hole!)? That shortfall is estimated at £3.9bn next year when the uplift will be £6bn so a good deal of the rise will initially go on existing projects 2/
Short term this will be made possible by some taking of money from international aid. Longer term, if he’s serious about building to 3% by the next Parliament (2030) that’s big money that could do far more than keep existing projects going 3/
