RISHI Sunak must crack the whip and increase defence spending to shield Britons from looming threats, an ex-British army chief has declared.
General Richard Dannatt joined the growing chorus of pleas for more cash as he accused the Government of a “failure of leadership” towards national defence.
APThe Government has only committed to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent “as soon as economic conditions allow”[/caption]
AlamyThe former head of the British Army Lord Dannatt[/caption]
It comes after ex-armed forces minister James Heappey said Britain has failed to prepare for war and has fallen behind its allies in preparedness.
He also revealed that only Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials turned up to an exercise to prepare for wartime scenarios which was meant for the whole of Government.
Asked about his comments , Lord Dannatt told GB News: “He perfectly reasonably said that this actually indicated that we’re not taking these things seriously.
“We should be worried if the Government didn’t respond to these criticisms and didn’t rise to the challenge.
“What this needs currently, without being unreasonable about it – it shows a failure of leadership.”
He added: “If you look at the worst outcome of Russia‘s aggression in Ukraine, if Russia should prevail against Ukraine, and then Russia should push against other NATO countries, we could find ourselves in a very serious set of circumstances here in this country.
“What it needs is for Number 10, the Prime Minister of the day, to absolutely crack the whip across government…we need to increase our spending on our defence, and that means increasing the defence budget from 2.2 per cent, through to 2.5 per cent, to 3 per cent (of GDP).
“Some would even say, and I would echo that, going up to 4 per cent, which is where we were in the Cold War, to make sure that we are properly looking after the defence and the infrastructure of this country, to make sure that we can look after the people of this country should the worst come to the worst.”
Lord Dannatt also argued the reason the Cold War “never turned hot” is because “we increased our defence capability” the point that the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact realised that “they couldn’t compete”.
Ministers have been warning Britain is moving to a “pre-war world” with concern growing about Russia, China and Iran.
But the Government has only committed to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent “as soon as economic conditions allow” despite pressure from senior figures, ministers and backbenchers to provide more cash for our armed forces.
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