BRITAIN will pay with the blood of its people if more money isn’t spent to bolster the UK’s defence, Penny Mordaunt has warned.
The ex-defence secretary has urged the government to “wake up” and fund the UK‘s security properly before it’s too late.
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Former Navy reservist Mordaunt argued that Britain is “emboldening our enemies” if we fail to invest in other forms of deterrence.
She warned the consequences with be “incalculably grave” if the government does not open up the treasury purse.
Ms Mordaunt told The Sun: “I’m confident that if you prepare for war, you invest in it, you train for it, then conflicts don’t start.
“Because your foes know it is not worth them doing that. They’re going to lose.
“The consequences of retaliation against them are too great.”
Ms Mordaunt’s call was echoed by Sir Liam Fox – defence secretary from 2010 to 2011 – who warned the greatest threat to the UK right now comes from Russia.
“Frankly, Putin is not going to be deterred by ambition,” he told The Sun.
“He’s deterred by hard power.”
It comes as the government this month released its much-anticipated Defence Review, which provided a catalogue of recommendations on how to respond to external threats.
The review – led by ex-Nato chief Lord Robertson – urges the UK to move to a position of “war-readiness”.
This could be achieved through numerous commitments to scale up defence capabilities – including a £1.5 billion investment in an “always on” pipeline for munitions, the review said.
But the Spending Review this week failed to fulfil the suggestions made by Lord Robertson – including to agree to Nato calls to ramp up investment to 3.5 per cent of GDP.
US president Donald Trump previously demanded the UK boost defence spending to five per cent of GDP.
It comes after Keir Starmer last week vowed to make Britain “battle-ready” and insisted the threat from Russia could not be ignored.
Ms Mordaunt said: “The US President pressed us to go further. The Prime Minister said we needed to deliver on all fronts to keep Britian’s people safe and their interests secure.
“Not to do so would be a dereliction of his first duty. I was hopeful.
“This week we discovered that, behind Treasury smoke and mirrors, defence will received nothing.
“No extra funds, no plan to reach Nato’s ask, no assurance to unlock industrial investment, no reassurance to donor allies like the US, or recipient allies such as Ukraine, that we are a serious partner.
“The consequences of this are incalculably grave.
High tax, high borrowing Labour is back
By Jack Elsom, Political Editor
ONE phrase that Rachel Reeves repeated four times cuts to the nub of her economic plans: “These are Labour choices”.
But not the cuddly, business-friendly Labour that we were promised before the election – instead the old-school variety of high taxes and high borrowing.
Her £300billion spending hike means she can point to shiny news infrastructure projects and talk the language of “renewal”.
It is a high-stakes strategy designed to win over working class voters that Labour is bleeding to Reform, who Ms Reeves devoted time in her statement to attack.
Many of those flocking to Nigel Farage do so out of growing despair that – in his words – “Britain is broken”.
It is why she made big plays on ploughing money into defence, the NHS and ending migrant hotels.
But they won’t thank the Chancellor if she is forced to put their taxes up even more in the Autumn…
“If the Prime minister believed what he told us about the threats we face then government must alter its plans.”
It comes as threats to the UK’s security loom large from rogue nations such as Russia.
And meanwhile the Middle East sits on the brink of war, with Starmer moving military assets in after Israel and Iran fiercely clashed.
Vladimir Putin continues to throw soldiers into his meatgrinder war in Ukraine which shows no sign of stopping after more than three years.
The bloodthirsty tyrant has repeatedly threatened Western nations – including Britain – over their support of Kyiv.
A series of suspicious incidents including undersea cables being cut in suspected sabotage attacks are also a real cause for concern.
And this week, Britain was declared as Russia’s enemy number one – even above Ukraine and the United States.
Ms Mordaunt warned: “We need to wake up Europe and we need to wake up in Britain.
“If we don’t start funding these foundational capabilities, we are going to end up having to spend more money in the future.
“And it won’t just be money we’re spending. It will be the blood of our own citizens because we’ll be in a conflict somewhere.”
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Sir Fox – who praised Lord Robertson’s “sensible” defence review – insisted defence is the “number one” job of the government.
He added: “The problem is the same problem we’ve had for a long time, which is that the governments like to make a lot of noise about defence – but the treasuries don’t open the cheque books.
“There’s a real problem in European governments in particular, which includes outs, that we enjoyed the peace dividend after the Cold War and thought it would last forever.
“And therefore we could increase our domestic spending on welfare and everything else. And that’s fine because the defence budget could stay much lower.
“Well, defence is not a discretionary spend.
“If they were useless at anything else, the one thing they have to be good at is protecting British citizens from outside threats.
“And that means they have to spend whatever is necessary in response to that threat, not what they would like to spend in a perfect world.”
Putin’s Ukraine war toll tops 1MILLION
by Patrick Harrington and Sayan Bose
PUTIN’s battlefield casualties have soared past the bloody one million milestone after 40 months of a war he expected to win within days.
Ukraine’s fierce resistance has ensured Russia has paid a mighty toll for every inch of land it has taken, and its advances remain painfully slow.
The staggering milestone includes troops who have been killed or wounded so severely that they cannot fight on.
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, one million Russian military troops have been put out of action since February 24, 2022, with 628,000 of those casualties occurring in the last six months.
Burning through a million troops has won Putin just 20 per cent of Ukraine’s total territory – mainly in southern and eastern areas – which is a humiliating conversion rate.
Despite the devastating losses which have already ripped a scar in Russian society, experts fear that Putin is likely unaffected by the numbers, because mass sacrifice is ingrained in his battle plan.
