would have to \u201cdial back\u201d<\/a> on military operations in the next few years if the MoD did not get more than what was being offered.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019ll have to dial back our activities; our exercise, operational activity, if the level of resource funding that is available to us does not increase,\u201d he said, in effect referring to military activity in Europe, Ukraine and the Middle East.<\/p>\n
All three interventions underlined concerns among Labour MPs about Starmer\u2019s unwillingness to back up his rhetoric with radical policy solutions and his apparent reluctance to overrule his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.<\/p>\n
They could have a significant impact on the prime minister\u2019s future, given that the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, is hoping to win the Makerfield byelection on Thursday on a promise to challenge the prime minister if elected.<\/p>\n
In a separate speech on Tuesday, the former health secretary Wes Streeting urged the prime minister to set out a timetable for his departure should Burnham win his seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the results are in, I hope the prime minister will reflect on his own position and set out a timetable,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that would be a better way forward for everyone and would enable that better culture that we aspire to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starmer insisted he would not accept such demands. Speaking to Times Radio from the G7 summit at \u00c9vians-les-Bains, he said: \u201cI don\u2019t think there should be a contest. If there is a contest I intend to be in it and to fight it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also appeared to reject pressure to increase the defence budget, saying: \u201cI have been responsible for delivering the biggest uplift in defence spending since the 1980s. That\u2019s what we did last year when we increased it from 2.3% to 2.6%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defence investment plan is about the capability for the future so that\u2019s more money even on top of that \u2026 What we\u2019re doing now is working with the new defence secretary to look at what capabilities he wants to prioritise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sources say the prime minister has given his new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, two weeks to learn the detail of the Dip and request any changes before the plan is announced before the Nato summit in early July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer is leaving British troops underfunded and unable to carry out the operations he expects from them,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-642696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642696","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=642696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}