𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

When he was Defence Secretary, he resigned in a fit of high moral dudgeon, slating the then PM Keir Starmer for his refusal to jack up defence spending.

Trying to convince us all (or was it himself) that he’s a man of principle, he told Starmer in his resignation letter in June: “ You have been unable and the Treasury, unwilling, to commit to the resources the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.”

Good bloke we all thought. A politician with actual integrity. Here was a man who understood that Britain will be defenceless in the face of an attack and the only way to get the money to make sure that doesn’t happen is to slash benefits.

Fast forward a few months, and now Healey is Chancellor and putting together his budget, and guess what – he’s cutting £2bn from front-line army equipment to fill the defence spending black hole.

So, hang on – he quits his job on a point of principle because the government won’t give him the money to keep Britain safe. But now he’s got the keys to the cash box he’s slashing Defence spending at a time when Britain has never been in more danger?

What happened to the morals and the integrity? Has he suddenly forgotten the dangers we’re facing? Or is he putting the security of this country in danger for the sake of millions of skivers and scammers who are bleeding this country dry on our £333bn benefits budget?

Or is it even simpler than that? Did Healey sacrifice his morals and his principles in order to bag the big job as Chancellor, and to Hell with defence of the realm, to Hell with our safety, to Hell with Britain’s future?

Healey knows better than most that if this useless Government doesn’t pull its finger out and produce a clear plan to get us to 3% of GDP on Defence and another 1.5% NATO says we need. Otherwise, Britain is a sitting duck for Putin and God knows who else.

He knows full well our high street banks are cyber-attacked 140,000 times a day. He knows our navigation systems are constantly under attack. He knows that the data, the energy, the sea routes we need to keep this country functioning could be sabotaged at any moment.

He and Burnham know that Russia and others have already developed the tools they need to mess up our way of life, yet still they sit in Downing Street burying their empty heads in the sand, desperately trying NOT to do what HAS to be done – i.e. cut the benefits budget to fund defence.

What the Hell’s wrong with them?

The choice is clear – either the Government spends 5% of GDP on preventing a war or it spends 50% of GDP – that’s FIVE times more than the benefits budget – fighting a war we’re never going to win because we’re so weak.

When Andy Burnham became PM, he promised to “honour our commitments on defence”, yet now he’s sending Healey to deliver the message that he won’t.

So, the man who sacrificed his principles for a great office of state will deliver the news that he will not commit to spending 3% by 2030 more like a piddling 2.7% – whatever the consequences of that folly might be. But whatever he decides we won’t know until next year because he’s going to kick defence into the long grass – yet again…

Who are these idiots in Government who think it’s OK to tell the people who elected them one thing and then do the polar opposite? Or are they just praying the disaster doesn’t happen on their watch so they can’t be blamed for it.

Are they really so stupid they can’t see what’s coming?

These latest cuts mean that plans to develop three new battlefield vehicles, including one that would have been able to recover Britain’s existing Boxer armoured vehicles if they were damaged in combat.

It means now Britain’s armoured vehicles would be left in full view of the enemy with no means of recovering them. How stupid is that?

But it’s clear now that despite all its protestations to the contrary this Labour Government isn’t the least bit interested in or committed to defence.

The idiot Wes Streeting has the brass neck to say: “The Armed Forces have to live within their means”.

Could he be more patronising if he tried? It’s hard to live within your means – when there are no means. The total active British Army is now just 74,000, so small that the entire force could fit inside Wembley Stadium. The regular strength Royal Navy sits at around 35,545 and has just 13 frigates and destroyers overall – down from 59 in 1982. And the RAF is at a piddling 35,000.

When the Iran war started, we had just one operational warship and even that broke down on its way to Cyprus. Our sovereign bases there came under attack, but they were defended NOT by British forces, but French. So French crews and French equipment were defending British soil. How shameful is that?

Lord George Robertson, co-author of the government’s Strategic Defence Review, described the UK military recently as “underprepared, underinsured, and under attack.”

We also know that during March and April, Russian submarines mapped out our undersea cables, and our response to that was not to tell them to get the Hell away or else. All we could say was that we knew they’d done it.

So why the Hell is this Government STILL sitting on its hands?

We can’t keep telling ourselves that defence is someone else’s problem. Mainly because until now the country and the President that might once have come to our aid now won’t because this Labour government has alienated and insulted him.

Trump also says Britain shouldn’t even be a member of NATO because we contribute so little to our own defence. And he’s dead right!

Poland spends 4.5% of its GDP on defence. Lithuania 4% and Estonia 3.4%. Britain might not get to 2.7% by 2030.

It’s a joke – a sick one!

And how about the terrifying fact the UK could only sustain major combat operations for just EIGHT days before running out of bullets.

Just think about that!

And of top of all that no-one wants to join the army because we treat our soldiers like dirt and leave them liable to prosecution and accusations of murder for just doing their job

Britain is no longer a serious military nation, and many past Governments are responsible for that. But it’s THIS Government right now that has to do something before it’s too late.

Because if it doesn’t – if it doesn’t wake up to the challenges and the dangers we face – many of us are going to die.

It really is as simple as that!