{"id":529671,"date":"2026-04-14T03:36:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/529671\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T03:36:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:36:06","slug":"former-nato-chief-to-say-uks-national-security-in-peril","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/529671\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Nato chief to say UK&#8217;s national security &#8216;in peril&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a directly political intervention, Lord Robertson will warn: &#8220;We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a speech in Salisbury, the former Labour defence secretary will say: &#8220;We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Britain&#8217;s national security and safety is in peril.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He will add: &#8220;There is a corrosive complacency today in Britain&#8217;s political leadership. Lip service is paid to the risks, the threats, the bright red signals of danger &#8211; but even a promised national conversation about defence can&#8217;t be started.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, previously said the investment plan was on his desk and was being &#8220;finalised&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A defence official highlighted the government&#8217;s target to spend 3% of GDP on defence by the end of the next parliament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A government spokesperson said: &#8220;We are delivering on the Strategic Defence Review to meet the threats we face.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a directly political intervention, Lord Robertson will warn: &#8220;We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-529671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}