Starmer plans military spending hikes as cost of living crisis looms

The economic crisis caused by the illegal US-Israeli attacks on Iran has gone global. Oil prices have reached a new normal of around $110 per barrel, with the US forced to release unprecedented amounts from their strategic oil reserves to keep prices from rising higher. Access to the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil transits, remains closed to most vessels. With talks towards a permanent peace deal stalling, a return to war would compound the economic crisis even further.

In Britain, businesses have already started to react. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics this week found that job vacancies for February to April were down 28,000 to 705,000, their lowest level since the 2021 Covid-19 lockdown. Unemployment has also risen unexpectedly to 5% while wage growth also slowed.

Yet, as this cost of living crisis unfolds, Keir Starmer is expected to announce an £18 billion increase to the military budget, to be spread out over the next four years. It follows weeks of pressure by figures like the former NATO Secretary General, George Robertson, for the government to cut welfare spending to fund Britain’s rearmament. This would only worsen the economic crisis – pushing millions more into further poverty.

You can read CND’s response to the crisis and Starmer’s plan to yet again hike military spending here. 

Protest the expiry of New START at the US Embassy, 21 May 

CND and supporters will be protesting outside the US Embassy tomorrow, for the second of two protests urging the US and Russia to extend the crucial arms control treaty, New START. Guest speakers include CND Vice-President Jeremy Corbyn MP; Green Party peer, Natalie Bennett; and Campaign Against Arms Trade Outreach Coordinator Kirsten Bayes.

New START expired in February and was the last remaining arms control agreement between the two largest nuclear powers. It placed limits on the amount of strategic nuclear weapons that both countries could deploy and was an important brake on an all out arms race.

You can learn more about our previous protest outside the Russian Embassy and read the letter that we handed into the Ambassador here.

• Thursday, 21 May 
• Assemble 12 noon
• US Embassy, Nine Elms Lane, London SW11 7US
• Protest will take place by the South Pavilion Consular Services in between Ponton Road and Victoria Gardens, opposite The Alchemist.