Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
“Are you emergency ready?”, the UK government demands. Perhaps the more important question to ask is: is it?
Bringing back memories of lockdown loo roll stockpiling, Britain’s households are ticking off items from the “Be Ready” checklist. They include water, a cash stash and a wind-up radio.
It’s all part of the Be Ready campaign to prepare for the unexpected, including war, cyber attacks or natural disasters. Fearing the snowflake public’s inability to cope with bad news, there is ministerial reluctance to make this too clear.
One day, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting advises us to be “alert but not alarmed”, the next he says Britain must be ready to go to war within three years. With such mixed messages, most of us – for once – will agree with Angela Rayner and include some Sauvignon Blanc in the emergency cupboard.
A more serious question, however, concerns the strength of the Burnham government’s commitment to defence and security.
Ahead of the 2025 NATO summit, Starmer-era Labour promised that 5 per cent of GDP would be allocated to defence spending by 2035. This included 3.5 per cent on “core” defence, and 1.5 per cent on “resilience and security.” Compared to spending in 2024, the Institute of Fiscal Studies warned this could mean an additional £36 billion a year.
Will the 5 per cent go the way of Labour’s other defence-related pledges? They include defence and security being the “organising principle of government” and Chancellor Reeves’ declaration that Britain would become a “defence industrial superpower.” In June, Treasury stinginess over the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan prompted the resignation of not just the ex-Marine Al Carns, who stated the government was failing the Armed Forces, but of Defence Secretary John Healey.
His departure over funding now seems a mite murky. On Wednesday, Chancellor Healey presented his first Budget. Decisions about getting to 3.5 per cent were deferred until next autumn’s Spending Review.
President Zelensky’s day was apparently made with news of an extra £10 billion for Ukraine. With that conflict in its fifth year, continuing uncertainty in the Middle East and “grey zone” cyber-attacks, it is unsurprising that war readiness made a come-back.
Last year, both the SDR and the National Security Strategy emphasised homeland defence and national resilience, along with a whole-of-society approach. In parallel, the first Resilience Action Plan was published, outlining the wide range of risks facing this country.
The RAP underlines how far Britain dawdles behind others in connection with resilience. Sweden, for example, has a “Total Defence” programme, with the entire population mobilised and playing an active role at times of crisis.
This year’s RAP confirms the government is resurrecting the War Book. Until the end of the Cold War, this set out detailed plans for each government department in the build-up to, and outbreak of, conflict.
Where are Britain’s air raid shelters? At least the Conservatives have proposed Britannia Shield, an anti-missile defence system, loosely based on Israel’s Iron Dome. With the government talking up the threat of war, it needs to offer the country more than guidance on dried fruit. The last major civil defence advice came in the risible Protect and Survive booklet. Nuclear war was apparently survivable by using the cupboard under the stairs as a fall-out room.
For all the Budget’s talk of a joint UK-Poland-Finland-Netherlands Multilateral Defence Mechanism (i.e. a defence investment scheme), the suspicion remains that Labour’s heart remains in welfare not warfare. Will it really choose nukes over the NHS?
The government’s sudden urge to turn us into a nation of preppers could have less to do with hostile state cyber-attacks and more with a forthcoming energy crisis made in SW1. Since the May government, Net Zero has been prioritised over national energy security. Should power outages occur this winter, with perhaps accompanying looting, whose fault will they be: Moscow or successive energy ministers?
The RAP primarily focuses on more mundane threats than war. It is sensible we are mindful about possible civil emergencies and plan for them. Having a stock of non-perishable food and a torch will hardly be news to anyone living in parts of Britain where floods and “adverse weather conditions” are not unknown.
The volunteers of Mountain Rescue and the Coastguard Rescue Service already personify civilian resilience. Perhaps Labour can use its influence with the opportunistic teaching unions to set an example of resilience to children by insisting schools remain open on nice summer days. BBC Weather could take a less alarmist tone.
Apparently on the advice of national fire and rescue services, last August at around 7pm on a Friday Burnham’s unofficial deputy Louise Haigh triggered a national Emergency Alert. If a sceptical public suspects ministers are crying wolf, the Be Ready campaign won’t be worth a hill of non-perishable beans.