Starmer said he ‘will fight’ any leadership challenge, not out of ‘stubbornness’ but from ‘deep sense of duty’
Keir Starmer has said that he will fight to keep his job if he faces a leadership challenge.
In an interview with Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, Starmer also defended his proposals for the defence investment plan (Dip) saying that he did not accept it was underfunded.
On the leadership, he said:
I want to complete the work I was elected into government to do. And therefore that’s why I’ve always said I’m not going to walk away from the commitment that I made in 2024 to serve my country and the mandate that I won from the British public in order to do so.
That was a mandate we won in 2024 with me then leading my party and me now as prime minister.
I’m not going to walk away from that because I think it’s very important that we carry on ensuring that we do the right thing.
Starmer said he thought it would be a mistake for Labour to “plunge the country into the chaos of a leadership election”.
But, if there is a leadership challenge, “I will fight,” he said.
That’s not about personal vanity, it’s not about stubbornness, it’s out of a very deep sense of duty.
I will post more quotes from the interview shortly.
Key events
No 10 says there’s no ‘zero sum choice’ between welfare and defence spending
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the No 10 spokesperson rejected claims that the government faces a “zero sum choice” between defence funding and welfare spending.
She said:
There isn’t a zero sum choice here. Over the spending review and before the Dip [defence investment plan], the defence budget has been growing faster than any other major government department.
We are investing in defence and reforming the welfare system and I would point out that the last government did neither.
The Conservative party and Reform UK claim that higher defence spending (indeed, almost any prospective extra government spending if you listen to some of their rhetoric) could be funded by benefit cuts. (Previous governments has found slashing welfare is not as easy as it sounds.)
In an interview on the Today programme this morning, Al Carns, who resigned as armed forces minister last night, hinted he had some sympathy with calls for lower welfare spending. He said
There is an argument around welfare. I’m a firm believer that it’s about hands up, not hand out.
But we need to help the people who need the most help within the nation, but also get the balance right across defence. That’s a difficult circle to square, as we’re finding.
But government ministers also insist that the welfare system should be about helping people to go back to work if they can.
Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, is in Swindon for the opening of the new drone testing facility, No 10 has confirmed. (See 12.36pm.)
No 10 says Dip still being finalised – but won’t reveal if Jarvis insisted on more funding before taking defence secretary job
Downing Street has confirmed that the defence investment plan (Dip) is still being finalised – but refused to say whether Dan Jarvis insisted on more money being allocated for it as a condition for taking over as defence secretary last night.
In his resignation letter, John Healey said the funding set aside for the Dip was “well short” of what was needed and he suggested Keir Starmer had given up trying to get more money out of the Treasury to fund it.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, a No 10 spokesperson said the plan was still being finalised – implying final spending totals are still up for negotation.
She said:
Work to finalise the defence investment plan continues at pace with the new defence secretary and the prime minister has been clear that he is determined to publish it before the Nato summit in July.
Asked whether the numbers given to John Healey on Monday were “set in stone”, the spokesperson repeated her answer.
Asked whether Starmer and Jarvis were agreed on the amount of funding the plan needed, she said:
The prime minister has been working with his team on this plan for months … No one’s shying away from the fact that this is about hard decisions, and we’re looking at a 10-year period ahead, and we must take the time to get that right, and that is what we are doing.
The spokesperson also rejected claims the government had been putting off tough decisions on defence by “backloading” commitments on spending (a claim made by Healey in his resignation letter). Asked if this was the case, the spokesperson replied
No, I reject that.
And I would just remind you of what our commitments are on defence spending: increasing defence spending to 2.6% next year, with the aim of increasing it to 3% in the next parliament when fiscal conditions allow.
So we have committed to that and we’re also committed to the Nato target of reaching 3.5% of GDP by 2035.
Originally the defence secretary was meant to be in Swindon today for a media event at a new drone testing centre. But the event was planned on the understanding that John Healey would still be in office. After he resigned, the media were un-invited.
Some sort of event is still taking place, but we’re rather short on details. Deborah Haynes, Sky News’s defence and security editor, has been in Swindon this morning, but was stuck outside the gates and did not sound very happy about it. The Swindon Advertiser is running a live blog, but without media access it’s a bit short on updates.
This is awkward because this was meant to be a big investment story. The new drone testing centre is described as the largest of its kind in Europe.
If you are curious as to why Swindon has emerged as a centre for drone expertise, the Economist explained why in this recent article. Here’s an excerpt.
The town of 230,000 people has already attracted Tekever, a Portuguese dronemaker, which is investing £400m there and will start producing advanced surveillance drones later this year. Stark, a German startup, is assembling loitering munitions capable of carrying a 5kg payload. Smaller firms, including Flyby Technology and Munin Dynamics, are moving in. Empty aircraft hangars ten miles south at a former air-force base are being prepped for testing drones. An MoD facility will lend a military cachet to the embryonic cluster …
Industrial decline has its benefits. Empty warehouses have dragged industrial rents down. Drone firms, keen to move fast, prize brownfield sites, those setting up locally say. Workers left adrift by the closure of a Honda factory following Brexit offer a pool of manufacturing know-how. Housing is relatively cheap. Firms also credit a YIMBY-minded local council with speedily stamping planning permits, and an energetic MP for courting defence firms.
Yet Swindon’s greatest asset may be its location. Mike Armstrong, who runs Stark’s British arm, says the town sits at the heart of Britain’s defence-aerospace corridor. London lies one way, Bristol the other, with a chain of military institutions dotted across the region.
Dan Jarvis has been tweeting about his new job. He says:
The defence of our nation is the first duty of government.
Our Armed Forces carry out that duty every day with professionalism, courage, and extraordinary skill.
It is a huge honour and a privilege to serve alongside them again.
Pro-Palestine activists believe ‘sea change’ coming in Labour’s approach to Middle East
Pro-Palestine activists believe there could be a “sea change” in the Labour party’s approach to the crisis in the Middle East which could result in the government taking a tougher stance on Israel, Patrick Wintour reports.
Earlier this week the Palestine Solidarity Campaign published polling showing that half of former Labour voters who are now backing another progressive party cite Gaza as a factor in their switch. In its write-up, the PSC says:
53% of voters who have switched from Labour to the Greens, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and independents say Labour’s policy on Gaza was either a factor or a major factor in their decision to switch.
Green voters were the most likely to say Labour’s policy on Gaza was a factor, with over two-thirds (67%) saying it was a factor, including 30% who said it was a major factor …
Nearly three quarters (74%) of voters who have switched from Labour to other centre or centre-left parties since the 2024 general election say their opinion of Labour would improve if the next leader were to adopt a strong position on Palestine, such as imposing sanctions on Israel.
Tories praise Carns for condemning Northern Ireland Troubles bill as ‘unfit for purpose’
In his resignation letter Al Carns, the former armed forces minister, said the government’s Northern Ireland Troubles bill was “unfit for purpose”.
He explained:
The same instinct, that serious problems can be managed rather than faced, runs through the Northern Ireland legacy bill.
I have worked to fix the bill from the inside, but it remains unfit for purpose. It risks failing the very veterans it claims to protect. Men and women I served with, those I buried friends alongside, people who did their duty under conditions most individuals in Westminster will never have to imagine.
I set out the changes I believed were necessary, and the lines which I could not in good conscience go beyond. Those lines have not been accepted. I have run out of room to argue this case honourably from inside government. A serving minister cannot ask fellow veterans to trust a process he no longer trusts himself.
The bill will replace the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act passed by the last government. The Tory legislation gave an effective immunity to members of the armed forces and members of terrorist organisations facing prosecution over Troubles-era allegations, provided that they gave information about those incidents to a new reconciliation commission.
The act was welcomed by former members of the armed forces, but opposed by all the main parties in Northern Ireland. In broad terms, nationalists were unhappy about former soldiers being exempt from prosecution, and unionists were unhappy about the same protection being extended to former terrorists.
Labour says it is replacing the Tory law because it was not fair to victims and survivors and because it is potentially unlawful.
Carns always made it clear he was unhappy about the bill. But he did not resign when it was published last year. It passed its second reading last November, and is one of the bills carried over from the old session of parliament into the new one.
Carns’ comment about the bill echoes what the Conservative party has been saying about it. Last night James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, praised Carns for resigning over this issue. He said:
Huge respect for Al Carns and the manner of his resignation – giving such a passionate and principled excoriation of Labour’s deeply damning NI Troubles Bill.
As he says, the Bill is “not fit for purpose” and betrays our veterans.
Up to 90% of Ireland’s asylum seekers may have entered from Northern Ireland, data shows
Up to 90% of asylum seekers in Ireland may have entered the country via the Northern Ireland land border in the last three years, figures suggest. Lisa O’Carroll has the story.
Carns says Dip too focused on wrong capability, saying MoD must invest in systems for next war, not last one
As armed forces minister, Al Carns was not involved in work on the defence investment plan (Dip). In his resignation letter, he said it was flawed not just because of the amount of funding involved; he also claimed it focused too much on the wrong capability. He said (and I’ve highlighted the key phrases in bold):
The character of conflict is changing faster than our procurement can keep up with. We are still purchasing capability suitable for the last war while our adversaries arm for the next one. Platforms that cost billions can be defeated by systems that cost thousands. Any serious defence investment plan has to start from that reality.
While I had no hand in the defence investment plan, that distance does allow me to say plainly that it is not built for the threat we face.
It is neither transformative enough nor sufficiently funded. We are asking our armed forces to operate in a more dangerous world on a budget written for a calmer one.
In an interview with GB News, asked to explain what he meant about the MoD buying equipement for the last war, not the next one, he said:
I want to see a higher percentage for uncrewed systems, AI, data – data is the new gunpowder – and we’ve got to move that forward if we are going to win the next war.
Carns calls for ‘new way of governing’ in resignation letter, in implicit criticism of Starmer’s governing style
Al Carns also indicated that he has leadership ambitions in the resignation letter than he released last night.
Carns resigned as armed forces minister around eight hours after John Healey resigned as defence secretary and for both of them the key issue was Downing Street not committing as much money as they wanted for the defence investment plan (Dip).
But Carns’ letter went much further than Healey’s. Carns complained not just about the money being allocated to Dip; he complained about how the money was being spent too.
He said he could not support the Northern Ireland Troubles bill.
These are issues that you might expect a defence minister resigning from government to raise. However, Carns also suggested that the government was failing across the board – and this is where he sounded like someone pitching for the leaders.
Here is the key passage. I have highlighted the most telling passages in bold.
Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.
If my resignation accelerates the transition towards resolution, then the impact will far outweigh the act. We need a new way of governing and we need it now.
For my own part, I will keep arguing for a politics rooted in resilience, seriousness and national renewal. For a country where working people can once again feel secure about the future. And for the service personnel and veterans this government still has a duty to.
The deal this country makes with the people who serve it, in uniform, in classrooms, on building sites, is broken. I’m going to spend my time on the backbenches trying to fix it.
This reads like a critique of Starmer’s method of governing. The allegation that under his leadership the government takes too long to take decisions is one that has been made frequently.
UK economy shrank by 0.1% in April as Iran war held back growth
Defence policy is not the only area where there has been bad news for the government. As Heather Stewart reports, growth figures out today show the economy shrinking in April.
Here is her story.
And this is how it starts.
The UK economy contracted by 0.1% in April as the Iran war began to take its toll on growth, official figures show.
As energy prices have risen as a result of the conflict, after Iran closed off the strait of Hormuz – a vital shipping route for global trade – the UK’s strong expansion in the first quarter slid into reverse.
The fall in gross domestic product in April, which had been expected by economists, followed a 0.3% increase in March, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Global growth is slowing to lowest level since pandemic, says World Bank
The data will underline fears that the UK economy will contract in the second quarter of the year.
Al Carns declines to rule out standing for Labour leadership
Al Carns, who resigned as armed forces minister last night, has not ruled out standing for the Labour leadership.
In an interview on LBC this morning, asked if he would consider standing for the leadership if “the ball comes out from the back of the scrum”, Carns replied:
I’m good at rugby and football, but we’ll see what happens … I’m always up for playing.
And on the Today programme, when asked about if he had resigned from the government out of personal ambition, Carns replied:
People get confused about ambition and service. My whole career has been put to service. If I wanted to be ambitious, I wouldn’t have got into politics. If I wanted to make more money, I wouldn’t have got into politics. I left the military not because my career was faltering, but because I decided I wanted to make change, because I think we’re a pivotal moment in the history of the United Kingdom.
So, this is about service to me. I’ve been really clear.
I haven’t even received my P45 from the last job yet and we’ll see what happens in the future.
Carns only became an MP at the 2024 election, less than two years ago, and he had no experience in politics before that, and so many would regard the thought that he could become Labour leader any time soon as preposterous. Only a handful of MPs seem to be in favour of the idea.
But Carns has been promoting his credentials as a potential leader, setting out his vision in an article for the New Statesman last month. His record in the Royal Marines was highly impressive, and he was regarded as someone who could have gone right to the top of the armed forces.
There is also a history of political parties turning to former servicemen as leaders partly because voters generally admire soldiers. Sometimes this works out well (eg President Eisenhower and Colin Powell in the US) and sometimes this doesn’t (eg Iain Duncan Smith).
Peter Kyle says he is loyal to Keir Starmer, but not ‘blindly loyal’
Peter Kyle, the business secretary, told Sky News this morning that he was loyal to Keir Starmer, but not “blindly loyal”. He said:
It is a purpose that brought me into politics, not a person.
That purpose is to get growth into our economy, to make sure the hard work is rewarded anybody who should get on in life and has the aptitude to get on in life and the approach to get on in life should be able to be rewarded for it.
We need to make sure we have a country that is respected around the world, and public services that are there for everyone, because they’re too often not.
This is the mission that I came into politics in order to deliver and Keir Starmer has delivered on these things.
He has earned my loyalty. I’m not blindly loyal to him. He has earned my loyalty, because we are aligned in the purpose of this government.
Sky News has just shown some footage of Dan Jarvis meeting Keir Starmer in No 10, and then footage of him leaving No 10.
As he walked along Downing Street, reporters shouted questions at him from a distance. What’s the state of the defence investment plan (Dip)? Are you renegotiating the Dip? Will it be ready in time for the Nato summit? Are you just keeping the defence secretary seat warm for someone else?
All good questions.
But Jarvis did not answer them.
UK’s defence plan is underfunded and outdated, says Al Carns after resignation
Al Carns has delivered a withering assessment of the government’s defence plans after quitting as defence minister, accusing ministers of not spending enough money on the military and spending it on the wrong weapons. Kiran Stacey has the story.
Minister rejects claims Labour’s defence policy ‘in tatters’, as Dan Jarvis starts work as new defence secretary
Good morning. This time yesterday Keir Starmer’s leadership was already in peril, with many in his party assuming that he will be replaced by Andy Burnham at some point later this year, but there was a consensus that, on defence and international security, his record was impressive. John Healey’s surprise resignation as defence secretary blew that apart. Later, after 8pm last night, Al Carns, the armed forces minister, also resigned over the defence investment plan.
Here is our main story, by Pippa Crerar and Dan Sabbagh.
Here is an analysis by Jessica Elgot.
And you can read the exchange of letters between Starmer and Healey here.
In his letter to Healey, Starmer defended the defence investment plan (Dip), which has not been published but which prompted Healey’s resignation because, when he saw what he thought was the final version on Monday, he concluded that it did not commit enough money to the armed forces. Starmer said:
You are also right that we have to go further. The defence investment plan does just that — delivering an unprecedented increase in defence spending in a sustainable way. It will provide the resources our military needs to keep us safe and the clarity the British defence industry needs to plan. It will make the big strategic investments we need for the long term and give the certainty which private finance needs to invest. It will allow our armed forces to transform and modernise and back them with the tools they need to change the way we fight — and to deter our enemies. And crucially it will ensure the money spent is spent wisely and used to back jobs and growth here in Britain.
That implied the version of the Dip that was unacceptable to Healey would not be changed.
But this morning Peter Kyle, the business secretary, has been giving interviews on behalf of the government – and he implied it was still being finalised.
Kyle told Times Radio “the plan is being developed” and “we are determined to get it right”. And on Sky News he said:
We are setting [the Dip] out before the Nato summit, [in] early July, what that looks like, and we are just finalising those plans.
At one point the government was expected to publish the Dip this week. The Nato summit does not start until 7 July, and so Kyle’s comments imply publication has been held back.
In his Times Radio interview, Kyle also rejected a suggestion that the government’s defence policy was “in tatters”. When this was put to him, he replied:
No, the plan is being developed. We are determined to get it right. We are talking about an enormous amount of money going into defence at a period of time where we have to modernise the way we think about defence, but also make sure that we do so in a way that benefits British jobs. This is highly complex.
Last night Dan Jarvis, the former security minister, was appointed defence secretary. We don’t know yet whether, as a condition of taking a job, he insisted on a revision of the Dip spending figures that Healey criticised so strongly. But he is due to attend an event at a drone factory in Swindon this morning, and so we might get some clarification there. Earlier this morning he arrived at Downing Street.
(According to Politico, the visit to the drone factory was planned some time ago, and at one point it was thought this could be where Healey would be announcing the publication of the Dip. But on Wednesday the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, said that releasing such an important announcement when the Commons was not sitting would be “an utter disgrace and an utter kick in the face” to MPs, and – before Healey resigned – the government abandoned plans for an annoucement today.)
We will also get a lobby briefing at 11.30am which may – or may not – provide some clarity. Otherwise, the political diary for the day looks quite empty.
I’m afraid we’re not expecting to be able to have comments open today because the moderators are particularly stretched with other duties. But, if you want to draw something to my attention, do use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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