“The bombs are being pushed by military experts as ‘usable’, yet are three times as destructive as the bomb that killed 200,000 people in Hiroshima.”
By the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
The British government’s long-awaited Defence Investment Plan is due to be published, which is expected to include funding to expand Britain’s nuclear capabilities – with the purchase of 12 nuclear-capable F-35A fighter jets.
The Defence Investment Plan (DIP) has been significantly delayed, with reports that Starmer would not sign off on the costs for the Strategic Defence Review, which was published last summer. The government will be increasing spending by an extra £18 billion over four years – pushing Britain’s military outlay to nearly 3% of GDP by 2030.
The plan is expected to include an upgrade to Britain’s conventional Typhoon jets as well as the funds to purchase the nuclear-capable F-35A jets announced by Starmer at last year’s NATO summit. The jets will be assigned to NATO’s Dual Aircraft Capability mission and give the RAF a nuclear role for the first time since 1998.
These jets are designed to launch US nuclear bombs now stationed at NATO bases across Europe and here in Britain at RAF Lakenheath. The bombs are being pushed by military experts as ‘usable’, yet are three times as destructive as the bomb that killed 200,000 people in Hiroshima. The jets also tie Britain even more closely to the Trump administration, which will determine the deployment and targeting of any nuclear attack.
Whilst 12 initial F-35A nuclear-capable jets are being purchased – at a cost of at least £2.5 billion – another 63 will be ordered along with the same number of F-35B conventional jets over the lifetime of the weapons. The National Audit Office estimates the whole programme will cost at least £71 billion. However, this does not factor in infrastructure upgrades or training needed for the jets’ integration into the NATO nuclear mission. So these costs will only go up.
CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:
“This military spending hike announcement is totally out of step with what the country needs now. People’s wages have been flatlining for over twenty years, whilst costs continue to rise and public services crumble. And we haven’t really started to feel the impact of the increases in energy and food prices caused by the illegal US-Israeli attacks on Iran – which is likely to push millions more into poverty. What we are seeing is a continuation of a disastrous policy by the government, which is making the world more dangerous and making us all poorer. It is contributing to the erosion of global nuclear disarmament as the purchase of these jets breaches the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now more than ever, we need a new political direction in this country – away from war mongering and nuclear escalation and towards policies that stop people being pushed into poverty, that rebuild vital public services and invest in climate action.”
- This article was originally published by CND on 27 May 2026.
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