The ex-Nato chief’s Exocet missile fired at Keir Starmer hits its target

George Robertson’s attack on Keir Starmer is quite something. Not only did he actually write the government’s strategic defence review last year, but he is usually discreet. He is one of those influential people who, if they have disagreements with the prime minister, will take them up in private.

It seems that something has snapped. Britain’s leaders have shown “corrosive complacency”, putting the nation “in peril” while it is “under attack”, he says in a speech today that was trailed in advance in the Financial Times.

The prime minister is “not willing to make the necessary investment”, Robertson says: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”

He has lost patience with Starmer’s “stall, and stall, and stall again” approach to the promise of a further increase in defence spending.

Much of Lord Robertson’s speech, about the need for that spending, is familiar. What is new is the attack on Starmer himself and the comment about cutting welfare spending to pay for it. Both points provide ready-made material for Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister’s Questions tomorrow.

Starmer is paying the price for playing short-term politics. He could have taken one of two coherent positions.

He could have set out a plan to raise defence spending to 3 per cent early in the next parliament, funded by tax rises or welfare cuts, or a combination of both. Or he could have said that we have just taken a really tough decision to raise defence spending by a significant amount, doing the big, bad, right-wing thing of switching spending from foreign aid. Let us see how that works out and what the world looks like in a year’s time, and make a further decision then if needed.

Instead, he took a middle course of agreeing that defence spending needed to rise further, from 2.5 per cent of national income to 3 per cent, but without a firm date for achieving it.

That satisfies no one. I am told by someone involved in national security policy that Starmer has a “clear enough strategy, which is to avoid the Parliamentary Labour Party”. He would rather not consult Labour MPs, many of whom disagree with the tough decisions he has already made and do not want to go further in that direction.

Even the soggy centre of the party – MPs who agree that Ukraine and Iran mean that we ought to spend more on defence – do not want to take the money from welfare. They like Starmer standing up to Donald Trump, but only the easy bit – the words. They don’t want to face the implication that, if we cannot rely on America, we will have to spend more on our own defence.

Starmer’s problem was that the switch from foreign aid was also relatively easy. Labour MPs had no time to organise before it was announced and done. Anneliese Dodds, the aid minister, resigned honourably, but after the event. And yet my sources say that that money “has gone”. Although it was a permanent uplift in defence spending, all it did was make up for years and years of underfunding. Lord Robertson, who knows his stuff, says we need more.

Starmer’s dilemma is that Robertson is a roundhead. As 1066 And All That puts it, he is “right, but repulsive”, whereas the average Labour MP is a cavalier, “wrong, but wromantic”. The prime minister does not want to confront Labour MPs, who hold nomination rights that could trigger a leadership election, with the hard arithmetic of raising taxes or restraining the forecast rise in the welfare budget. So he stalls for time.

Once again, he falls victim to the fundamental flaw of his premiership, which is the language of total and absolute conviction contrasted with the actions needed to get him through the day. So growth is the number one mission – until he is asked to make decisions such as rejoining the EU or cutting burdens on employers. And increasing defence spending to 3 per cent is part of “my first duty as prime minister to keep our country safe” – but only when “economic and fiscal conditions allow”.

If he had overruled the Treasury and insisted on higher defence spending, he might have faced some internal opposition, but he might also have earned some respect. Likewise, if he had said, “No, 2.5 per cent is good enough for now,” Robertson would still have delivered his searing attack, but Starmer might be defended by the other wing of his party.

As it is, Starmer pleases no one and finds himself increasingly isolated. And all the while, Robertson’s warning rings in our ears: “We are underprepared, we are underinsured, we are under attack. We are not safe.”