The resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey and Armed Forces Minister Al Carns has thrown a spotlight on a growing dispute inside the British ruling class: how much should be spent on maintaining Britain’s military power abroad?
Healey resigned after clashing with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves over the government’s Defence Investment Plan. Carns soon followed, arguing that the military wasn’t receiving enough money and that Britain was failing to prepare for future conflicts.
The dispute centres on billions of pounds in military spending. The Ministry of Defence reportedly sought around £18 billion in additional funding over four years. The government’s plan offered £13.5 billion, of which only around £10 billion represented genuinely new money. Healey had pushed for military spending to reach 3% of GDP by 2030, while current plans are expected to leave it closer to 2.68%.
Corporate media coverage has largely framed the resignations around Britain’s supposed need to “defend itself” in an increasingly dangerous world. But this framing obscures a basic reality: Britain isn’t under threat of invasion.
The United Kingdom is one of the world’s major imperialist powers. It possesses nuclear weapons, maintains military bases across the globe, participates in NATO’s vast military apparatus, and projects force far beyond its own borders. British troops aren’t stationed in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia because Britain faces imminent conquest. They’re there because the British state plays an active role in maintaining an international order that’s favourable to British monopoly capital and its allies.
The question isn’t whether Britain can “defend itself.” The question is what the British military actually exists to defend.
It’s not ordinary working people. It certainly isn’t public services, wages, housing, or living standards.
Successive governments have found billions for military deployments, nuclear weapons and foreign interventions while claiming there’s no money for social housing, healthcare, disability support or local government. The same state that says it can’t afford to clear housing waiting lists stretching into the millions somehow finds tens of billions for new military commitments whenever the strategic interests of British capital demand it.
This contradiction lies at the heart of the current dispute.
Healey and Carns represent one section of the political establishment arguing that Britain’s imperial commitments require greater investment. They point to growing tensions between the major powers and argue that Britain must spend more to maintain its military capabilities.
Starmer and Reeves aren’t fundamentally challenging that goal. They support increased military spending themselves. Their disagreement is over pace and priorities. The government is attempting to balance military expenditure against the political and economic pressures created by years of stagnating living standards and crumbling public services.
In other words, this isn’t a debate between militarism and peace. It’s a debate within the ruling class about how best to manage Britain’s resources while preserving both its imperial ambitions abroad and social stability at home.
For working people, neither side offers much.
The billions being discussed won’t build the council and social housing Britain desperately needs. They won’t reverse NHS waiting lists. They won’t restore local services that have been stripped away through years of austerity. They won’t solve Britain’s deepening cost-of-living crisis.
Instead, the dispute revolves around how much money should be allocated to maintaining Britain’s role within the US-led imperialist alliance system and its ability to intervene internationally.
The resignations expose an uncomfortable truth often hidden beneath talk of national security. The greatest threat facing most people in Britain isn’t foreign invasion. It’s insecure work, unaffordable housing, collapsing public infrastructure and declining living standards.
Yet when resources are allocated, the needs of imperial strategy continue to win out against the needs of the working class.
That’s not an accident. It’s a reflection of whose interests the capitalist state ultimately serves.
