The United Kingdom prime minister faces strong criticism after announcing that the government will reinvest the money spent so far on international aid to strengthen the country’s army.
Keir Starmer said the three-year Ukraine war in a “volatile” international context made it essential to increase the defense budget to 2.5% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by 2027.
“We are in a world where everything has changed”, Starmer said. “The reason for this is straightforward Putin’s aggression does not stop in Ukraine. Russian spy ships menace our waters. Russian planes enter our airspace. Russian cyber-attacks hit our NHS”.
Our national security must always come first. pic.twitter.com/mFJVy2ElPM
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) February 26, 2025
He then anounced “the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War”, an “increase of £13.4bn year on year”. He justified this step in line with the idea shared with other governments that “European countries must do more for their own defence”.
Then he added: “I have decided that we will fund the initial increase in defence spending by cutting our spending on overseas development moving from 0.5% of GNI to 0.3%”. The “defence and national security of our country must always come first”, he said.
Christian aid organisations were among those who heavily criticised the announcement.
Tearfund, a charity working alongside churches in over 50 countries around the world, said the announcement of Keir Starmer was “a devastating blow to the world’s most vulnerable”.
CEO Nigel Harris said “the decision to slash the already strained UK aid budget is appalling and will mean that around the world families go hungry, children don’t go to school and women’s rights are sidelined”.
From the point of view of Tearfund, the Labour government “has broken manifesto commitments, while undermining the UK’s credibility and its claims to be a world leader on development and on combatting climate change. The aid budget saves lives around the world; cutting it will result in more deaths, more disease, and more conflict”.
Also the United Kingdom Evangelical Alliance expressed disappointment. In a statement sent to Evangelical Focus, CEO Gavin Calver said “difficult decisions need wisdom not expediency”.
The UK government’s primary obligation to its citizens is security, says the EAUK. “By cutting aid, the government demonstrates its failure to recognise that our security is a global issue, not a national one. The UK’s commitment to support other nations’ development has long-term benefits on a global scale”.
Calver underlined that “the biblical principle to share one’s wealth with those who have less is how we seek the peace and prosperity both for others and also for ourselves. Cutting aid for those in fragile states will lead to further destabilisation and conflict”.
The EAUK hopes that the government will “rethink its actions”, adding that he would “continue to pray Psalm72 over our prime minister and the UK government”.
Christian Aid’s head of UK Advocacy and Campaigns for Christian Aid, Jennifer Larbie , said called the government’s decision a “political choice”. According to news website Christian Daily International, she said: “The world’s most vulnerable and defenceless people are not responsible for the UK’s defence”
“Rather than just fold into Trump’s so-called new world order, we need leadership that will challenge it”, the Christian Aid representative added.
Meanwhile, the leader of The Leprosy Mission, peter Waddup, said he felt “stunned” by the “cruel act of taking aid from the world’s poorest people”.
Published in: Evangelical Focus – europe
– UK Christians say cutting foreign aid to increase defense spending is “indefensible and short sighted”
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