Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 26 June 2026. © Richard Kemp

Is Keir Starmer about to throw a hand grenade into the enemy camp? By ‘enemy’ I mean whoever succeeds him as Prime Minister. Starmer reportedly intends to publish his grossly inadequate Defence Investment Plan before his successor is even nominated, thus handing a fait accompli to the new PM which will then have to be accepted or somehow unravelled.

Not only that but Starmer currently intends to present the DIP at the Nato summit in Ankara on 7 July, which will make this country a laughing-stock among our allies. That much has been signalled already by Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, who warned that Britain risks global irrelevance unless it properly funds defence and meets Nato spending commitments. He said recently ‘when push comes to shove, you either have the ships to send to the Gulf or the brigades to deploy to Ukraine, or you don’t’. Right now we don’t, and under Starmer’s DIP we won’t.

Worse still, our opponents including Russia and China will be encouraged by Britain’s humiliation and, by extension, that of Nato as well. One of Starmer’s final acts as Prime Minister is set to endanger our country and the Western alliance.

The DIP is the blueprint for funding Britain’s defence commitments for the next decade. It is far from sufficient to meet the requirements of the recent strategic defence review and two of Starmer’s own defence ministers have resigned because they recognise exactly that. John Healey, the Defence Secretary until a couple of weeks ago, said it “falls well short of what is required for defence” and fails our armed forces. Basically, the DIP offers a staggering £8 billion less than the £18 billion of extra funding that Healey considered the bare minimum he needed over the next four years.

Under the stiletto heel of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and with a party behind him which refuses to contemplate economies in pursuit of its the holy grails – welfare spending and net zero – Starmer lacked the authority to beef up our defences. That means paralysis for the armed forces: reduced readiness, not enough people, insufficient training, equipment that cannot meet the demands of the modern battlefield and gross deficiencies in munitions stocks. All of this at a time when warfare is evolving at a terrifying and unprecedented rate, driven by new technologies – not least the explosion in air, sea and ground drones and space weapons.

The defence ministers’ resignations pushed an already deeply troubled premiership into a full-blown leadership crisis that led quickly to Starmer stepping down. Under those circumstances, his successor will have no choice than to reconsider the DIP. It won’t be easy because he will be leading the same party with the same priorities. But a stronger and more talented leader – if one emerges – may be able to change the equation, conceivably by ridding himself of the current Chancellor and the current, totally uncontrollable Secretary for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The damage has already been done by Starmer. But why make it even worse by publishing the DIP now and forcing his replacement into a very public U-turn, if indeed he has the courage and aptitude to do so? Much better for the credibility of this country to hold back and let the new PM make the call.

Nato will of course expect to hear about Britain’s defence plans on 7 July but would understand that the leadership election got in the way. That would at least be damage limitation even if personally humiliating for Starmer.

Whatever he does now he can expect excoriation from President Trump, who will be scrutinising member states’ plans for achieving their Nato financial commitments. Perhaps it will be better for him on this occasion to be accused of equivocation rather than deliberately sabotaging his own country’s defences.