Funding defence with the money that the Home Office is allegedly going to return to FCDO any decade now. Not a serious government. - ThreadSky

stephenkb.bsky.social • 3 days ago

Funding defence with the money that the Home Office is allegedly going to return to FCDO any decade now. Not a serious government.

Reposted from The Guardian

Starmer planning big cuts to UK aid budget to boost defence spending, say sources

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stephenkb.bsky.social•3 days ago

I'm genuinely intrigued as to how this one actually works, because there was already an intra-government row about the *idea* that at some point in the future the Home Office might give that money back, whereas defence spending is actually going to have to go up, you know, today.

stephenkb.bsky.social•3 days ago

Oh, it's as bad as feared: the idea is that in 2027, the Home Office will 100 per cent, deffo, have returned the money and you can therefore meaningfully just fund defence spending through that 0.2.

aremay.bsky.social•3 days ago

Really excited also to read the defence review that's supposedly in train right now, given this decision.

ppudney.bsky.social•3 days ago

They just need to put taxes up, they won't get a better time to justify it. Or are waiting for budget.

thomascheney.bsky.social•3 days ago

yep, they should have done it in Sept bur the spring budget is as good a time, needs to happen, no it wont be popular but youve got 4 years to sell it/allow people to get over it

mykl.sparkle.blue•3 days ago

Do they know something about Putin’s health that we don’t?

invalid-handle.com•3 days ago

Is this just a blag because they need to do something *now* and it may help with politics with Trump? But they know they will need to do things properly in the “scheduled fiscal event” this autumn.

Or is it just really rubbish politics?

greyskiesthinking.bsky.social•3 days ago

It is certainly not going to help with justifying the tax rises/borrowing that are going to be needed - 'you told us you'd already found the money'.

invalid-handle.com•3 days ago

True. But could they have done an emergency budget this week? And dealt with those questions now?

They presumably need something to take to show Trump and help as part of a unified European plan to get him more on side?

And this they thought was the cleanest way of doing so?

greyskiesthinking.bsky.social•3 days ago

I can quite understand their reasoning, especially with a spending review in the offing. It's probably mainly a fudge to get over the next few weeks, but it does seal in the aid cuts and it will make selling any abandonment of the current fiscal stance more difficult.

q1t3d0.bsky.social•3 days ago

Er. I know they like to push stuff into the long grass for the next lot to deal with but this is just making a problem for themselves. Even as a purely populist policy this seems mad.

scandifriend.bsky.social•3 days ago

Why do you think they are so scared of borrowing/taxation to do this properly? I am just starting to find it a bit baffling

soundandfury.bsky.social•3 days ago

And isn't aid linked to national security? I'm sure I read that recently.

azery.bsky.social•3 days ago

It is, Lammy probably isn’t very happy about this lmao

pauladamson.bsky.social•3 days ago

I guess a row suggests there are different opposing views yet to be settled. This decision may have just shortcut the row.

stephenkb.bsky.social•3 days ago

It hasn’t.

moonlighthanger.bsky.social•3 days ago

Serious question: does the '3% on defence spending' have a particular definition of what counts as defence spending? Could, say, a new hospital near an army barracks count as 'defence spending'? Or upgrading transport infrastructure (that might be used by the armed forces), etc?

stephenkb.bsky.social•3 days ago

No, although you can count things like army pensions, these wouldn't count. And also we do actually just need to meaningfully increase defence spending.

moonlighthanger.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yes, I get that. Although given that 'x%' is such an arbitrary way of setting a 'target' (and arguably provides perverse incentives to spend less efficiently), I was wondering if some other essential spending could be thrown into the 'defence' bucket. Thanks for clarifying.

woolfianjosh.bsky.social•3 days ago

Accounting trickery with the hope of persuading a senile, warmongering dictator to leave Britain alone. Magical thinking all the way down.

gungurran.bsky.social•3 days ago

also seems to me to be a bit weird to do this in the same month where I've seen a lot of talk about how much bang for buck the US was getting out of USAID (esp in context of forestalling future conflict)? [appreciate I am not "target voter" and maybe a false comparison?]

simonl6.bsky.social•3 days ago

But serious politics to say if increase in defence budget is in part a peacekeeping force in Ukraine then expectation *most* refugees return to live in that *peace* (and may be very serious diplomacy).

stephenkb.bsky.social•3 days ago

It's not about 'will we still be spending that money on the specific need' it's 'what evidence is there it will be out of the Home Office by that point'.

simonl6.bsky.social•3 days ago

If and when they move the civil service budget holder from HO to MOD

simonl6.bsky.social•3 days ago

I say MOD deliberately. It will not return to FCDO unless peace returns. To those of my generation, post-empire IAD is THE peace dividend.

coops365.bsky.social•3 days ago

A serious government may very well have to make the judgement call that increasing defence spending is a higher priority than international aid at this point in time.
Not a nice choice, but I can see a justification for it.

stephenkb.bsky.social•3 days ago

You need to read my post again.

coops365.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ah, more that they are taking money from an empty pot?
Apologies if I misunderstood.

stephenkb.bsky.social•3 days ago

No worries - yeah, my point is that we already don't spend most of our ODA budget as ODA because we've used it for supporting refugees from Ukraine here in the UK.

coops365.bsky.social•3 days ago

Which is fair. I guess my point is that the government is going to have to make a lot of very serious decisions about defence, NATO, US relations, etc. The way they are announced may not always be great, but I have faith that they are taking this very seriously. More than most commentators are.

jamesbarr.bsky.social•3 days ago

Feels like the voters scare Starmer more than the Americans and Russians

vespalien.bsky.social•3 days ago

Well, he's doing his best to annoy us all, protecting utilities over environment & consumers, austerity cuts continue to destroy services & kill people, refusing to cosy up to EU, funding Israeli war crimes. 🤷‍♂️

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