“Any effective campaign against public sector and welfare cuts needs to be making anti-war arguments.”
Stop the War and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) have both released individual statements on the government’s announcements on the Defence Investment Plan. You can read them both below.
Chris Nineham, Stop the War Coalition:
In a telling and desperate bid to leave ‘a legacy’, Keir Starmer has insisted on announcing the Defence Investment Plan before leaving office and before the NATO summit. Never mind the cost-of-living crisis or the collapsing services he leaves behind, Starmer wants to be remembered as the man who ramped up spending on weapons to record levels.
He claims he doesn’t want war, but that the best way to avoid it is to be prepared for it. This is a transparent lie. His government has done little more than enable the US and Israel’s illegal wars and has enthusiastically backed the war in Ukraine, doing everything possible to prolong the carnage in the effort to, as he put it today, “turn the screws” on the Russian economy.
It is clear that security, defence and the fantasy and implausible threat from Russia, which is constantly talked up by ministers, generals and arms companies, are now the main ways that the ruling classes are justifying attacks on social programmes, on welfare and working class living standards in general in favour of still more missiles
Starmer claims this record defence spending won’t be funded by public sector cuts but by “relocating capital budgets by a penny in every pound” and scrapping some infrastructure projects. The public aren’t stupid about what this means. And that is why any effective campaign against public sector and welfare cuts needs to be making anti-war arguments.
There is strong minority opposition to any increase in defence spending, but polls show this opposition surges to big majorities across Europe when it is presented as a question of choices between wages and weapons, between welfare and warfare. This is why we must urgently build a popular movement that has these arguments at its heart.
CND:
Today, the government published the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan which increases military spending by a further £15 billion, with military spending planned to rise even more to nearly £80 billion per year by 2029.
Announcing the Plan, outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the government will be spending £64 billion on nuclear weapons over the next four years. General Secretary, Sophie Bolt, has responded – arguing that preparing for war is only dragging the world closer towards a nuclear conflict and why we need a new direction to tackle the real security threats we face.
Following today’s announcement, CND is increasing our campaigning work to expose the true costs of Britain’s nuclear weapons. As well as raising awareness about the deadly risks they pose, we are working with trade unions to build support for investment in what really keeps us safe: health, education, climate action and public services.
But we urgently need your support to continue this work.
Please donate today to help us stop Britain’s growing nuclear dangers and spiralling costs. Help us to build support for a peaceful, nuclear-free future.
The coming months will be critical as a new government considers further increases in military spending and nuclear policy.
Thank you for standing with CND at this critical moment.
CND has long argued for Britain to have an independent foreign policy free from the shackles of the so-called ‘special relationship’ with the US – a relationship that is underpinned by nuclear weapons and the use of British bases from Yeovilton to Lossiemouth. As the last few months have shown, British bases like RAF Lakenheath and RAF Fairford have been a vital staging ground for US military aggression abroad.
With this year’s 4 July celebrations marking 250 years of US independence – CND, our local groups, and other organisations like Fairford Action and Lakenheath Alliance for Peace, are calling for ‘Independence from America’ with a number of actions taking place at British bases where the US military operates from.
- You can follow the Stop the War Coalition on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, BlueSky and TikTok.
- You can follow the CND on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X.
- These statements were sent via press release on 30 June 2026.
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