Dan Jarvis should not have agreed to become Defence Secretary given the proposed spending level in the inaptly named Defence Investment Plan.
Why did Jarvis, a former officer of the Parachute Regiment, agree to drink from Starmer’s poisoned chalice? He may have told himself that he was stepping up for his country at a time of danger. But it is actually more of a betrayal, giving apparent professional legitimacy to a Defence Investment Plan that puts our country into great danger – as John Healey made clear in his resignation letter.
Jarvis should have turned the job down, as should all other former-military MPs, who ought to understand defence better than the plethora of PPE students, former special advisers, DEI fanatics and political apparatchiks that warm so many of the green benches in the Commons. Ex-military MPs, more than civilians, should understand the gravity of the situation. They have a duty to press Starmer into increasing the planned defence budget. The same applies to the service chiefs of staff who should not be willing to preside over a plan that will endanger their men and make their country more vulnerable. Healey has made it clear: Starmer’s plan would make the country less safe, reduce the readiness of the Armed Forces and increase the risk to forces in battle.
Starmer will no doubt have calculated that a former soldier will steady the military ship, with many of our troops (he hopes) believing Jarvis will rise above politics and work in their interests. The same thinking will have been applied to wider public opinion: if a distinguished ex-serviceman is willing to take on this office and back the Defence Investment Plan that John Healey and armed forces minister Al Carns both resigned over, then it can’t actually be as bad as Healey said.
Having said all that, it may be that no amount of pressure would divert Starmer from his current retrograde path. Despite his big words about leading a ‘coalition of the willing’ for Ukraine and playing a key role in safeguarding the Strait of Hormuz (in both cases of course, after hostilities have ended), he is not willing to put our money where his mouth is. Starmer said only last week that our intelligence services assess we could face an attack by Russia as early as 2030. He obviously doesn’t believe that and neither does his party. The real threat, in their view, is global warming or climate change, or whatever the latest buzzword is. That is why Starmer prioritises Ed Miliband’s obsessive pursuit of net zero over defence.
Then there is party management in the face of a looming leadership challenge. Starmer may have calculated that, however serious, the loss of Healey would be less damaging among back benchers than the loss of Miliband, who reportedly refused point blank to give up any of his costly net zero budget to help fund defence. This is yet another example of Starmer putting his own political survival ahead of the national interest, as we saw earlier this year in Starmer’s willingness to alienate President Trump over Middle East policy. That he daren’t confront Miliband, or indeed defy Rachel Reeves who dictated the financial settlement, are further evidence, if any were needed, of Starmer’s abject weakness as Prime Minister.
Dan Jarvis’s willingness to front up Labour’s grossly irresponsible defence plans is a disservice to his country and he should be ashamed of himself. Reductions in British defence capabilities will obviously not go unnoticed by our enemies, especially Russia, which has been building up its forces on Nato’s borders. Even if there were the political will to actively defend our Eastern European allies – which I doubt – we will certainly not have the fighting power to do so effectively under this Defence Investment Plan. Putin would like nothing more than to expose Article 5, Nato’s collective defence obligation, as a paper tiger. And given the current and likely future state of European defences, Dan Jarvis has just made things easier for him.