Cutting Aid to Impress Trump? Keir Starmer Is Only Strengthening His Enemies
The British prime minister is foolishly trying to fend off the right by also increasing defense spending.
One of Britain’s greatest socialist politicians, Tony Benn, once said, “If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.” Clearly, this message was lost on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
This week, Starmer announced Britain would increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, and 3% in the next government’s term. Starmer plans to finance this spending increase by cutting the UK’s aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of GNI, despite railing against Boris Johnson’s cut in foreign aid in 2021.
This is all part of Starmer’s desperate attempt to look tough ahead of an upcoming meeting with President Donald Trump, who also made headlines by destroying USAID. Trump’s isolationist stance has also upped the pressure on NATO, and Starmer’s move is likely an attempt to boost his standing among NATO members.
To be fair, neither US nor UK aid agencies have covered themselves in glory when it comes to alleviating poverty. In recent years, an increasing share of the UK’s ‘aid’ budget has been spent on supporting refugees and asylum seekers within the UK. Another chunk goes to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which have brutalized the global south over the course of the last several decades by enforcing devastating neoliberal economic policies in exchange for emergency loans.
USAID has provided billions of dollars of critical humanitarian assistance, but it’s also been a tool of American imperialism. The organization states outright that “furthering America’s foreign policy interests” is one of its primary aims and it has long worked closely with the CIA. It also relies heavily on outsourcing to a few massive US corporations. One report highlighted that 40% of the aid sent to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2008 returned to the US and other donor countries in the form of corporate profits and consultancy fees.
Nevertheless, the symbolism of the move is clear. The US and the UK won’t bother trying to justify their imperialist agenda with the language of humanitarianism; instead, they will focus on the naked exercise of military power. We can’t find the money to help people, but we can find the money to kill them.