The Prime Minister has been warned on Monday that making a “premature” pledge to send British troops to Ukraine is a concern, as the government must focus on boosting defence spending first to enable this to happen.
Shadow Home Office Minister Alicia Kearns has said that Labour must increase defence spending and told GB News that the government must hit 2.5% of GDP initially.
Kearns told GB News, “We had a very clear plan for how we would get to 2.5%,” she added that US spending is around 3.4%.
She added, “There is a clear threat to us. There is still war in Europe, and we have to make sure that we at home are safe.
“That is our responsibility as a British Government.”
Kearns said that to allow any new deployments overseas this will require an immediate move in investment priorities.
She added, “That would mean more investment in our army, whereas at the moment we’ve been focused on our RAF and our navy.”
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Speaking about Starmer sending troops out to Ukraine, she said, “I don’t think he is. I think this announcement is slightly premature.”
She added, “We need a deal that ensures Europe is safe from this imperialist terrorist state that we see from Russia, but that means investment in defence spending.”
Writing in the Telegraph Starmer said, “I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way.
“But any role in helping to guarantee Ukraine’s security is helping to guarantee the security of our continent, and the security of this country.”
However, the former chief of the British Army Lord General Richard Dannatt told the BBC the UK would have to send around 40,000 soldiers, he warned, “we just haven’t got that number available.
He added, “Our military is so run down at the present moment, numerically and as far as capability and equipment is concerned, it would potentially be quite embarrassing.”
Speaking to Times Radio, General Sir Nick Parker, former commander of the British Army, said, “It does seem to be a little bit early to start talking about sending troops to Ukraine when there’s a brutal, hot war going on.
“I’m very nervous of the term peacekeeping – if you’re going to deploy something into an environment where you’re expecting to keep the peace, you have to fight. And that requires all the military capabilities.
“So I think it’s very premature to start talking about the UK – certainly not on its own – going and doing something which requires us to be able to fight really hard at a time when our armed forces are pretty tight.”
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