UK defence readiness is indefensible

The Defence Investment Plan, which has been AWOL for months, landed on the desk of Defence Secretary John Healey this week, and he became its first casualty.

Not yet published, the DIP is reportedly still short on what defence chiefs and John Healey have been asking for. In his resignation letter, Healey accused the Prime Minister of failing to “meet the moment” and went on to expose Rachel Reeves’s pathetic offer of an increase of £13 billion over four years, extremely short of what’s required.

Healey’s letter confirms what readers of defence commentary already knew. Britain’s armed forces are not just woefully hollowed out, but Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have no interest in making the policy of rearming a priority. 

With procurement failures, a recruitment and retention crisis, depleted ammunition stockpiles and a lack of investment in autonomous capabilities such as drone warfare, Labour feel the best form of deterrence is hot air press releases condemning Russian aggression and polite requests to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. 

So if Keir Starmer’s own Defence Secretary thinks the Government’s current trajectory on defence could make the country even “less safe” than we already are, how can Britain’s chief of the defence staff, the man in charge of overseeing the army, navy and air force, Sir Richard Knighton, justify staying on?

As both Lord Robertson and John Healey have demonstrated, silence and complicity are no longer options. The problem Sir Richard Knighton now faces is that his loyalty in his role as CDS is in danger of being viewed as complicity in their lack of urgency. It’s time to ditch the moral cowardice and opt for a dosage of moral courage.

​There is no record to date of a high-profile defence chief resigning on principle. If you ask former military officers about why this is the case, you tend to get the same answer: our generals, admirals and air marshals are more interested in getting their knighthoods, peerages, large pensions and book deals rather than speaking out.

​In short, this is a cultural rot which has manifested itself over decades. Not one head of service, permanent secretary, or head of a joint staff has resigned in relation to something incoherent that they’ve seen coming down the track. It leaves the country in a position where if the military cannot speak truth to power, then we are left with a military bureaucracy and not a fighting force.

​To give Knighton some credit, he hasn’t been entirely silent on the issue. It was only a few months ago that he told a Commons Select Committee that the UK was “not ready for full-scale conflict”, that the MoD “can’t do everything within the budget”, but went quiet on the £28 billion hole. An appearance which grabbed a few headlines at the time, but didn’t penetrate anything past the Westminster bubble.

Similarly, just last night, Knighton wrote to the PM to air his concerns that an offer of around an extra £13 billion to help fund defence was not enough. A strong gesture of defiance, but still lacking the moral fibre to actually turn round and say “your actions are putting our country at risk, act now, fund defence, or else”.

​An example of just how effective speaking out about defence can be is the recent comments of Lord Robertson, the co-author of the Strategic Defence Review. Despite being bound by a sense of collective responsibility, the former NATO chief recently berated the PM and Chancellor over their “corrosive complacency” towards defence.

​Lord Robertson’s speech hit all the right notes and once again resurfaced the public conversation that we still need to have, on how Britain should go about rearming in the face of ever-growing threats.

​One might argue that a defence chief who resigns over every budget dispute or ignored piece of advice can easily be replaced by another general waiting in the wings; however, the point to remember is that such a move would be unprecedented, and a resignation coupled with the backdrop of a hollowed-out military would tell anyone listening that they were warned and they did nothing while Europe bleeds.

Knighton reportedly told Starmer and Reeves about the £28 billion gap before Christmas. What’s happened since? Nothing. Just more dither and delay. And after having exhausted the appropriate channels to demand further and faster investment in defence, resignation is now the answer. It’s not a tantrum, but the only remaining act to punish them for what they’ve done — and left undone. Robertson spoke out, and the political classes sat up and listened. 

Healey’s resignation is now exposing Labour’s reckless attitude towards rearmament. All we wait for now is the man in uniform. 

Even when the Defence Investment Plan is published in full, it is likely to fall short of what’s required. Insiders who have seen the unpublished plan have raised concerns with colleagues that too much focus is on traditional hardware such as ships, tanks and jets, rather than on investing in artificial intelligence-enabled software, hypersonic missiles and cheap drones.

For Ukraine, drones have been a game-changer, something the DIP would do well to take note of. According to Ukrainian military estimates, drones have been responsible for 80 per cent of the 1,000 casualties Russia sustains daily, hence why in 2024, Kyiv started ramping up production. The unmanned aerial vehicles, which cost less than £1,000, have been credited with taking out Russian tanks, worth millions.

Knighton has to ask himself, what was he appointed to deliver on? Given we are currently dealing with a war on our doorstep, plus regimes in Iran and China seeking to undermine and probe our security daily, the answer he should come to is a complete transformation of our armed forces. Phasing our military from a state of being able to “hold the line” to “warfighting readiness”.

A resignation of Britain’s top military chief, on the back of John Healey’s departure, would detonate a political nuke. The Downing Street media circus would be in overdrive, calling for Starmer’s head. The public, who have largely been shielded from the conversation surrounding defence, would be confronted with reality: that both Britain’s defence secretary and military chief had no choice but to walk, and Donald Trump, as well as other NATO allies, would immediately be on the phone to the PM demanding action. 

A resignation by the Chief of Defence Staff wouldn’t just add political pressure to Starmer; it would force his hand. Robertson made his stand. Healey paid with his career. Now, it’s time for Knighton. Duty calls.