UK defence secretary resigns over military spending

**Charlotte Gallagher** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher, and at 15 Hours GMT on Thursday, the 11th of June, these are our main stories. The UK's defence secretary resigns, saying a plan put forward by Keir Starmer could make the country less safe. Iran says a ceasefire with the US is now practically meaningless. Is there any hope for an imminent peace deal?
Also, in this podcast, we take you behind the scenes, as the World Cup is about to kick off.

**Will Grant** (0:35)
It is resplendent. It is amazing. It looks completely ready. The pitch is pristine. The seats are incredible.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (0:49)
We begin in Britain, where the man in charge of the country's defence has announced his sudden resignation from the government.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, John Healey said he was proud of what the Labour government had achieved in the past two years in terms of defence commitments. But the Prime Minister and the Treasury had failed to provide the money the nation needs to defend itself. Our UK political correspondent, Rob Watson, told me why John Healey is resigning now.

**Rob Watson** (1:16)
We're expecting the government to announce what it is prepared to spend on defence in the coming days. And he clearly thinks it's not enough. I should say, Charlotte, I mean, this is a profound, yet another profound political crisis for Britain and for its Prime Minister. And I've seen a lot of resignation letters in my time, Charlotte, but this one is one of the most damning. I think I've seen it. I'm just going to read you a bit of the final paragraph from John Healey to the Prime Minister. He says, you know what defence needs. You made the argument for this powerfully in your speech at the Munich Security Conference in February. He says, without a defence and investment plan that meets the moment in this way, I am being forced to make decisions that would reduce the readiness of our forces and increase the risk to personnel on operations and could make the country less safe. End of letter. I mean, to accuse the Prime Minister of essentially putting the country's troops and security at risk is about as serious a charge as it gets.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (2:13)
I mean, we've talked a lot in the past about Keir Starmer having bad days, but as you said, surely, this has got to be one of his worst.

**Rob Watson** (2:22)
Absolutely. I mean, he's been reeling from the blows that the governing Labour Party suffered at the hands of voters at local elections back in May and in elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. And of course, his reputation has taken a massive hit over the fallout from appointing Peter Mandelson, friend of Geoffrey Epstein, as British ambassador to Washington.
But this is about the defence of the realm. And I think most people would accept that, you know, the government has one profound responsibility. It is to the security of its troops and the security of nations. And so for John Healey, who I should sort of fill in a bit of background here, he's a sort of labour loyalist. He has been the spokesman for Labour on defence for six years. He's been at Keir Starmer's side even when Labour were in opposition talking about defence. So for him to stick the knife in like this is profoundly wounding.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (3:16)
And what sort of state is defence like in Britain at the moment?

**Rob Watson** (3:19)
Well this is why this is such a big issue. And to sort of zoom out a bit, last year the government published something called a Strategic Defence Review looking at what is Britain's role in the world in terms of defence and security. And it had basically said it should have the ambition Britain to be a leading member of NATO and to play a profound role in Europe's security. But the review noted that Britain's capabilities had been massively run down, that there was a totally parlous army, navy, air force because of decades of underinvestment after the Cold War and was basically saying you're going to have to spend a lot of money if Britain wants to be a big player, money on drones, on unmanned vehicles, and that it is a very serious enterprise. And quite clearly what has happened is that John Healey, the defence secretary now gone, has basically said, look Keir, you promised, you recognised what a challenge this was, how much money was going to be spent.
But we can see now that the money isn't going to be there, or at least not the money that Mr. Healey and the defence industry and the armed forces would have liked.