International aid cuts create a void where evil flourishes
Plus: Many accents and one voice, the North is mobilising + we untangle Apple's privacy move + Labour must not forget the energy crisis raging in households
Defence, diplomacy and development: these are the three D’s of foreign policy.
Prior to Tuesday, the first two had been under threat. Our spending on defence - a relatively pitiful 2.3 per cent - had left us woefully reliant on our NATO allies: an institution whose future looks increasingly perilous in the face of changing international allegiances. Meanwhile, our standing in the world had been compromised by our declining domestic fortunes. Since the UK’s exit from the EU and the commencement of Donald Trump’s second presidential term, our ability to exercise our soft power had been waning. Gradually, Britain was no longer as Great as it once was.
Now, as of Tuesday — in pursuit of bolstering our military capabilities — Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made a decision that is set to knock the third pillar out of alignment: slashing international aid from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of GDP to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027.
A rise in defence spending is welcome. The world is facing an unprecedentedly perilous era. Russia is pursuing an aggressive, expansionist agenda - seizing land and interfering in Western democracy. The USA is no longer a reliable and trusted ally. The UK must be the guardian of its own future.
An increase in defence spending is welcome, however, 0.2 per cent points is negligible. It is unlikely to appease Trump in the long term, leaving us far short of the 5 per cent target he has previously demanded. Even worse is the decision to fund the increase through reductions to the foreign aid budget, a short-sighted and counterproductive solution that rests on a false dichotomy: that we must choose between defending Britain and helping the world’s most vulnerable. In reality, these priorities are inextricably linked. If the government is serious about protecting the UK, it should recognise that well-targeted international aid is not an act of charity, but an investment in global stability, and by extension, our own security.
The notion that Britain can insulate itself from global crises with a better-armed military alone is naïve. The root causes of many security threats—conflict, forced migration, terrorism—stem from poverty, weak governance, economic despair and environmental degradation. Development aid tackles these issues at their source, preventing crises before they reach our shores.
Take the Sahel region in Africa. Climate change, food insecurity, and economic hardship have created a breeding ground for extremist groups such as Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda affiliates. The UK’s aid programmes in the region have helped provide education, food security, and counter-radicalisation initiatives—tackling the conditions that fuel extremism. Cutting these funds will not make Britain safer, instead it will create a void for terror groups to exploit, worsening instability and increasing the likelihood of future military entanglements, that will cost far more than any aid budget ever could.
Similarly, reducing aid will exacerbate the global refugee crisis, not alleviate it. When countries are left without support in the face of droughts, famine, or war, the result is massive displacement. The right-wing challenger party Reform UK is already making hay from the plight of those forced to flee war-torn or conflict-ridden lands. We are not yet prepared for how increased pressure on our borders could spill over politically.
Britain’s aid commitments have helped stabilise fragile states, enabling people to rebuild their lives at home rather than being forced to flee. Slashing these funds may please the likes of Trump, Farage and Badenoch, but development charities are already deeply concerned that the cuts will lead to greater instability, more irregular migration, and heightened tensions within the UK and across Europe.
There is a conservative argument for foreign aid, too - if there is anyone left to make it. Foreign aid is a cornerstone of Britain’s global influence. Soft power is a key tool of modern diplomacy, and it has never been more important than since the egregious act of self-harm that was Brexit, where our standing in the world diminished considerably. At a time when China and Russia are expanding their own influence through strategic aid and infrastructure projects, retreating from international development is a strategic blunder.
As Richard Darlington, Campaign Director at Aid Alliance tells The Lead, the most recent absence of UK foreign aid – particularly cuts to health initiative – has created a void that adversarial powers like Russia and China will be quick to fill: “Now the UK has got to spend 18 months working out what gaps it causes by having a cut, and in the meantime you have Russia and China – who also have a lot of interests in Africa –talking to African governments about what kind of loans they can provide to these governments, and what kind of infrastructure projects they can invest in. But they don't care about human rights violations, and so into this vacuum that the US and UK have caused, adversaries can step inside.”
Military power without foreign aid is like pouring water into a leaking bucket. Without addressing the underlying causes of conflict and insecurity, we are creating a scenario that requires an ever-growing budget. Even more dangerously, we are empowering our adversaries.
Dan Paskins, Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns at Save The Children puts it succinctly: “The more you cut back on the things that prevent conflict, the more conflicts you end up having. It's a real false economy, because you end up boosting defence spending by having a much greater level of threats that the UK is having to respond to.”
He told The Lead that Save The Children want to see both defence and development invested in as two sides of the same coin: “There's clearly a much better alternative, which is to invest in defence and development alongside each other towards a planned strategy, and really thinking about what's the outcomes that you're trying to achieve, and what's the best balance of different kinds of approaches.”
Increasing defence spending is both inevitable and vital. But the idea that this must be funded through further cuts to already strained governmental budgets is absurd. As I’ve written on multiple occasions, the government is facing unprecedented events - and now has the perfect excuse to ditch the unrealistic tax and spend pledges that may or may not have secured their government. But it is time to be realistic and brave: borrow, invest and tax the rich. Things have changed beyond recognition. Normality has long gone.
This need not be about choosing between helping the world’s poorest and protecting Britain’s interests. The two go hand in hand. Investing in international aid is not a luxury, but a necessity for a safer world. Cutting it to fund defence is not just misguided policy; it is a fool’s errand that will make us all less secure.
Many accents, one voice
We spent Friday at the Convention of the North in Preston, as Deputy Prime Minister outlined her unwavering commitment to Devolution and the swaggering Metro Mayors (well nearly all of them) presented a united and upbeat front as they made passionate call for the greater powers and funding they’ve been promised.
And there was a warning shot too, mainly from Andy Burnham, the talk of hyper-connectivity in ‘Oxford-Cambridge corridors’ must not come at the expense of equivalent projects in the North.
Zoë Grünewald reflects below on the current state of play in politics in the North, and the challenges ahead. And there’s also an exclusive audio note for our subscribers with Ed and Zoë at the conference digging into what was discussed.
And editor of The Lancashire Lead, Jamie Lopez, was there for both days. He’s been keeping tabs on the debates and discussions in his Convention of the North notebook and there’s also his reaction to Angela Rayner’s very hard lines on Devolution timelines for Lancashire.
Apple customers in the UK will no longer be able to use Advanced Data Protection (ADP) after refusing government demands to build a back door that would allow law enforcement agencies access to user data stored on iCloud.
The issue has been picked up on with gusto in the recesses of social media platform X so this week’s The Lead Untangles focuses on the issue and what it actually means for users, the police, and how it’s been received more broadly.
The heat was continuing to rise in households this week as the energy price cap rose by more than expected.
Zoë Grünewald looks at how Labour must not forget, even though international policy may be glitzy, the challenges facing families and individuals when their energy bills land.
And that’s our weekend edition for this week, many thanks to all of you - our readers - and we hope you enjoyed our reporting from the Convention of the North. We can’t get out there and in front of politicians, to ask them questions and hear about those issues, without the support of our subscribers. We hope you enjoyed our exclusive audio note digesting the key themes of the conference. If you’re able to support us get out to more political events then consider becoming a paid-for subscriber to support our in-depth, insightful and original journalism.
In the meantime, we hope you have a fantastic weekend - whatever you’re up to - and for subscribers who listened to our Convention of the North digest then Zoe and Ed did track down Feathers McGraw….
Ed, Zoe, Luke, Sophie, Natalie and The Lead team