Keir Starmer is facing backlash from his ranks after he announced his decision last Tuesday to cut the foreign aid budget from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent of the British economy.
This sudden cut came suspiciously ahead of Starmer’s visit to the US, as he announced an increase of the defence budget to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027. Some have speculated that this move – similar to Trump’s recent slashing of USAID, was an attempt by the PM to ingratiate himself with his new master in Washington.
This triggered the resignation of the international development minister Annalise Dodds, and several MPs expressing concern at the plan being “shortsighted and unjustified”.
It is with sadness that I have had to tender my resignation as Minister for International Development and for Women and Equalities.
While I disagree with the ODA decision, I continue to support the government and its determination to deliver the change our country needs. pic.twitter.com/44sCrX2p8z
— Anneliese Dodds (@AnnelieseDodds) February 28, 2025
This reaction is probably in part out of embarrassment, as yet another promise from Labour’s election campaign is reversed.
The hypocrisy of this move hasn’t gone unnoticed: Labour were in staunch opposition to a similar decision by the Tories in 2020, when Boris Johnson’s government slashed funding from 0.7 percent to the current 0.5 percent.
The Centre for Global Development revealed that this will take UK overseas aid to its lowest level as a percentage of national income since records began.
A government source told The Guardian: “This is a real debate now…what will be left of the Labour programme?”.
The reality of ‘soft power’
This latest move comes as a blow to the Labour’s foreign policy ambitions before the last election. In 2024, foreign secretary David Lammy made a big deal of his new doctrine of ‘progressive realism’.
Lammy had envisioned a shift from ‘hard’ military power towards ‘soft’ diplomatic power, envisioning Britain as a smooth-talking go-between for the big powers.
Prior to, and soon after Labour’s election victory Lammy made dozens of diplomatic trips to make connections with the US, Europe, the Commonwealth, and even China.
At the start of the year, the think tank Labour Together set out the pillars of this ‘charm offensive’, as the government set up the ‘Soft Power Council’ with the stated aim of using culture and art to raise the UK’s profile across the globe.
This self-interest, stemming from the needs of British imperialism, is exactly what international development aid represents – and not so-called ‘charity’ and ‘humanitarianism’ as members of the liberal establishment like to harp on about.
In opposition to Starmer’s decision, the chief political commentator of The Observer bluntly expresses this with the headline: “In this dangerous age, Britain needs to exert soft power as well as the hard stuff”.
This, and not concern for the poor of the world, is why Whitehall bureaucrats, ministers, and the liberal establishment are really up in arms.
An unnamed source in the Labour government said to The Guardian that foreign aid is a “sacred area” of policy. Of course, the British government has used this aid for decades as a cover for its imperialism.
For example, a government watchdog revealed that most of the British ‘aid’ to Afghanistan between 2000 and 2020 was spent on the police and other ‘security agencies’ – and not on humanitarian aid.
The same can be said of the ‘aid’ sent to Syria during the civil war, which often ended up in the hands of Islamist rebels.
Much of the aid sent to Africa has been funnelled to the pockets of corporations and aimed at carving up the continent for the benefit of private capital.
Despite the importance of this lever, and the government’s avowed doctrine of ‘progressive realism’, Starmer’s Labour cannot always do as its pleases, especially in these uncertain times. To paraphrase Robbie Burns, the best laid schemes of ministers and men oft’ go awry.
Establishment hypocrisy
But Britain must do as the US pleases – whatever the cost. Trump has been demanding a boost in defence spending from European NATO countries since before the start of his presidency.
Starmer – competing with Macron for the accolade of ‘Europe’s most rabid warmonger’ – is caught between a rock and a hard place.
Trump, the new boss in the White House, is eager for a ceasefire deal. Starmer, however, has promised billions in aid and boots on the ground for Ukraine, in an attempt to boost his prestige and use jingoism to cut across the class struggle at home.
But with the British army in tatters, he knows none of this can happen without the blessing of the US.
The jump to 2.5 percent of GDP on defence is still short of the 5 percent Trump has demanded of his NATO ‘allies’, but Starmer has dutifully expedited from ‘as soon as possible’ to within the next two years. The PM has also promised to go beyond this to 3 percent by the next parliament.
Of course, Starmer refused to comment on how much Trump’s cuts to USAID influenced his own. “The reason for [cutting foreign aid] is straightforward: Putin’s aggression does not stop in Ukraine,” he claimed at a press conference.
But Starmer’s denunciation of “aggression” is very selective. This all comes at the same time as Israel – for whom the UK’s support is “ironclad” – started blocking all aid to Gaza and breached the ceasefire agreement with several attacks.
Neither the aid-slashing government nor the liberal mouthpieces attacking Labour’s latest move care one bit about the poor of the world – nor the Ukrainian people.
Their only worry, from seemingly opposing sides, is to salvage Britain’s declining power – both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’. Starmer and Lammy are scrambling to keep their prized position as the lapdogs of American imperialism.
The fissures in world relations are already putting our ruling class in an unstable position. The increase in militarism at the expense of public spending will only create further instability, opening the ground for class struggle.
