Ex-Nato chief warns next PM must wake UK to war threat as Burnham faces pressure on defence spending

The country needs to be “woken up” to the threat of war, a former Nato secretary general has said, as he urged the next prime minister to look again at the level of spending on defence. Lord Robertson told MPs that Britain’s Nato allies were “disturbed” by the delay to the UK government’s plan to invest in defence, which he described as “unconvincing”. Last week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer set out plans to increase military spending by £15bn over the next four years, following a bitter row over defence funding. But Lord Robertson, who wrote a strategic review of defence for Sir Keir, said the challenge of increasing military spending “is now bigger, more serious, and earlier than we had anticipated, and yet the defence investment plan itself doesn’t come up to it”. He said a warning he made in April about “corrosive complacency” towards defence “applies to the whole political leadership”. “There is a degree of complacency in the country as a whole, which I think is very very dangerous,” Lord Robertson said. “People need to be woken up.” He added: “We need to alarm people because as the review said, we are under daily attack at the present moment and that will be ramped up.” Sir Keir has said “there could be an attack by Russia on Nato as soon as 2030”. The prime minister landed in Ankara on Tuesday for a Nato summit attended by US President Donald Trump. Ahead of the summit, Nato chief Mark Rutte called on allies to continue giving Ukraine the support it needs – along with “clear and credible” plans to commit 3.5% of GDP to defence spending. The Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis wants Andy Burnham to set out how he will reach that target when, as expected, he takes over as prime minister. But Jarvis wouldn’t reveal whether he’s spoken to Burnham in person yet. Sir Keir said the defence investment plan would be built on by his successor, who is widely expected to be Makerfield MP Andy Burnham. AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said AI and technology will continue to be a priority for the UK government under its likely next prime minister, Andy Burnham. Speaking at POLITICO’s Playbook Live event on Tuesday, Narayan said he and Technology Secretary Liz Kendall have both met with Burnham “to talk about the centrality” of AI for the UK. “Of course in the transition, Andy, I’m sure, will bring particular flavour to how he wants to think about technology and AI,” Narayan said – but the importance of AI to the UK’s economy, national security and geopolitical power were now “enduring facts”. Narayan also acknowledged public concern about AI, particularly the “central crisis” of potential job losses. “The transition has to be a fair transition, has to be a transition that’s fulfilling, and has to be a transition that works for us as a country altogether,” Narayan said. He said there was a “clear-cut argument” for the government to take an active role and “clinch this moment for a fundamental institutional redesign of how workers are supported.” The prime minister faces pressure at the Nato summit to ramp up defence spending sooner, while the shape of Burnham’s defence and AI policies remains unclear.