Pain for our time

Ahead of his visit to Washington DC on Thursday Sir Keir Starmer has just made a statement on defence spending to the House of Commons.

In it, he committed to increasing spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product  (GDP) from its current 2.3% per annum to 2.5% by 2027, with an aspiration to increase it to 3% in the next parliament (ie after July 2029). Labour's manifesto commitment was to increase spending to 2.5% - where it had been under the last Labour government - by 2030 so this is a significant policy gear-shift.

It is no coincidence that this is precisely the direction of travel Donald Trump has stipulated (or is that demanded?) for NATO members. Offering up this gift will be Starmer's opening gambit at the White House on Thursday when he pays court, today's Commons statement being merely the preamble. Usually a bottle of whisky or embossed cufflinks suffices but this is a time for some serious diplomacy, hence a gift amounting to £13.4bn of additional spending annually from 2027.

Just as in 1938, appeasement means placating an aggressive despot and Starmer's peace offering to Trump has been achieved by following his host's lead in cutting the foreign aid budget. Starmer's “painful choice” means a foreign aid cut for the UK from 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) to 0.3% (the UN target being 0.7%, which the UK briefly achieved under David Cameron and lost under Boris Johnson). 

In other words, while some pain will be felt at home - much mitigated by presenting it as a patriotic necessity - it is mainly being offshored. This is what transactional politics looks like, of course - any amount of pain is justifiable so long as it's largely at someone else's expense; preferably someone a long long way from home - out of sight, out of mind - who doesn't have a vote.

Domestically, cutting foreign aid is a policy choice that trends well with the electorate, which explains why it's the first lever any opportunistic politician reaches for in hard times. The second is welfare spending.

We have been warned.

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