This branch notes:

1. Keir Starmer’s announcement on 25 February 2025 of the ‘biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War’
2. That Starmer has no mandate for increased military expenditure funded through cuts to public services or overseas aid, and that these increases will fuel an arms race.
3. That Starmer’s pledge to increase military expenditure by £6bn per year (from 2.3 to 2.5 per cent of GDP) for the next four years (funded by cuts to overseas aid) and by a further £15bn per year to 3 per cent of GDP in the next term of a Labour government is a betrayal of communities and our welfare state at a time all public services are being depleted.
4. That Starmer’s pledge to ‘translate defence spending into British growth, British jobs, British skills and British innovation’ is empty rhetoric, since UK military spending takes place through global supply chains dominated by US weapons manufacturers.
5. That defence spending generates less jobs than spending in any other sector of the economy.

This branch resolves:

1. To oppose increases in military spending put forward in 2025, including in the government’s ‘Strategic Defence Review’.
2. To demand a ‘Peace Dividend Now’ by working with anti-poverty and anti-austerity campaigners for the £3 billion of additional nuclear military spending announced for 2025/2026 to be restored to fund essential social needs.

This resolution was carried by members of the branch at the ordinary general meeting 11 March 2025. The text here is subject to approval of the minutes of that meeting. The original motion was proposed by Megan Povey, moved by Megan Povey, seconded by Jenny Rivas Perez. The meeting amended the motion as proposed by Natalie Kopytko and seconded by Nigel Bubb . The resolution above is the text as amended.