John Healey has resigned as defence secretary, accusing Keir Starmer of jeopardising national security by failing to stand up to the Treasury. In a scathing letter to the prime minister, Healey said the long-awaited defence investment plan “falls well short of what is required for defence” and would have forced him to take decisions that “could make Britain less safe”. The defence secretary had been pressing Starmer for a larger increase in military spending than the offer he received on Monday, which amounted to an extra £13.5bn over four years — a sum defence sources said would really mean £10bn once “Treasury trickery” was taken into account. The plan presented to Healey would have raised spending from 2.6% of GDP now to 2.68% in 2030, without a timetable to reach the 3% target the government has committed to. Healey was pushing for that mark by 2030, but the deal fell well short of the estimated £28bn needed to avoid large cuts. He told Starmer that an increase of 0.08% would not be enough to keep the country safe.
Within hours, Armed Forces Minister Al Carns also quit, telling the prime minister he could not defend “a level of investment I know to be inadequate to the task”. Ministerial aides Pamela Nash and Rachel Hopkins are also said to have resigned. The crisis deepened as Sky News reported that the UK’s military chief had written to the prime minister amid concerns that the £13bn offer was not enough.
“John Healey resigns as defence secretary, accusing Starmer of inadequate defence spending and jeopardising national security.”
Healey’s resignation letter depicted Starmer as unable to stand up to the Treasury and accused Rachel Reeves of being “unwilling” to commit the funds needed for defence. He warned the prime minister he was breaching “the UK commitments you have rightly made to allies”. The i newspaper’s editor-in-chief Oliver Duff wrote that Healey’s accusation was “grave”: that Starmer is jeopardising national security and failing in his first duty. The Sun described the departure as “a massive and possibly mortal blow to Keir Starmer”.
Security Minister Dan Jarvis, an Army veteran who served in the Parachute Regiment in Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan, was appointed defence secretary nearly nine hours after Healey’s resignation. He takes over as a crisis over defence spending rocks Starmer’s leadership. Healey had earlier outlined plans to favour British firms in procurement, saying he wanted to be “unashamedly pro-Britain” and would make greater use of national security exemptions. But that announcement was overshadowed by his resignation, which leaves the government without a defence secretary who had been seen as a loyal and hardworking minister.