Lord Robertson, the former NATO secretary-general who authored the government’s own strategic defence review, has publicly accused Keir Starmer of “corrosive complacency” on national security – warning that Britain is “underprepared, underinsured, under attack and not safe” and that the nation’s security is “in peril.” It is a remarkable intervention from a man who had stayed silent until now, and who is not a political opponent but one of the government’s own key advisers.
Robertson used a lecture in Salisbury on Tuesday to deliver the sharpest public rebuke yet of the prime minister’s handling of defence, telling the Financial Times beforehand that there was “a gap between the prime minister’s rhetoric and action on defence” and that Starmer was “not willing to make the necessary investment.”
“We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe,” he said. “Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.”
Who is Lord Robertson and why does this matter?
The significance of this intervention cannot be overstated. Lord George Robertson is not a Conservative MP seeking to embarrass the government, nor a think tank analyst with a particular axe to grind. He is a former Labour defence secretary who served in Tony Blair’s government, a former NATO secretary-general who led the alliance from 1999 to 2003, and the man Starmer himself commissioned to write the strategic defence review (SDR) when he took power in 2024.
Robertson had, so far, refrained from criticising the government publicly. He had kept his counsel and tried to work constructively behind the scenes until now – but has run out of patience with the government’s failure to grip the problem.
That patience has now expired.
The funding gap nobody will talk about
At the heart of Robertson’s intervention is a funding crisis that the government has been quietly managing – and failing to resolve.
According to officials, the funding shortfall for existing defence plans over the next four years is approximately £28 billion – even without taking into account the ambitions of the strategic defence review itself. The government had promised to address this through a 10-year Defence Investment Plan, initially due last autumn. It has still not been published.
The Ministry of Defence, the Treasury and Downing Street have been unable to agree on a timetable for publication of the Defence Investment Plan. Despite repeated calls from military and political figures for clarity on future funding, the government has not yet set out when it will appear.
Robertson places particular blame on Treasury officials, accusing “non-military experts in the Treasury” of committing “vandalism” and warning: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
His pointed reference to welfare spending signals that he believes defence must take priority over social expenditure – a politically explosive argument that directly challenges the fiscal logic of a Labour government that came to power on a platform of public investment and welfare protection.
Rachel Reeves and 40 words on defence
Robertson delivered a biting statistical illustration of how far defence has fallen down the government’s list of priorities. He noted that Chancellor Rachel Reeves “used a mere 40 words on defence in over an hour” in her Budget speech last year – and that in the Spring Statement last month, she used none at all.
“There is a corrosive complacency today in Britain’s political leadership,” he said. “Lip service is paid to the risks, the threats, the bright red signals of danger – but even a promised national conversation about defence can’t be started.”
Iran exposed the reality
Robertson cited a specific and damaging example of the consequences of underinvestment: the UK’s inability to deploy more than one Royal Navy warship, HMS Dragon, to the Mediterranean within the first fortnight of the Iran war.
The Royal Navy has six Type 45 air defence destroyers. Only one was deployable to one of the most strategically critical waterways in the world at the moment it mattered most. Robertson described this as evidence of the “parlous state” of British defences.
He went further, warning that the problems go well beyond a shortage of ships. The UK faces “crises in logistics, engineering, cyber, ammunition, training and medical resources” – a picture of a military that is not just undersized but structurally degraded across multiple dimensions.
His co-author on the strategic defence review, General Richard Barrons, former head of Joint Forces Command, has warned that at the current pace of investment it would take the UK about 10 years to be ready for a major conflict. “And our analysis and our allies are saying to us, well, maybe you’ve got three to five years,” Barrons said, referring to the intelligence assessment that Russia is preparing for the possibility of a direct conflict with Europe.
Russia at the door
Robertson’s intervention comes as the threat picture at home has also darkened. Last week, Defence Secretary John Healey exposed a covert Russian submarine operation loitering near undersea cables in and around UK waters – part of what he described as ongoing “hybrid warfare activities” that Moscow is conducting against Britain and its allies.
The Kremlin confirmed that a Russian warship had escorted oil tankers through the English Channel last week. Robertson told the Financial Times that “there’s a hybrid war being declared on us already, and it could change at any moment” to direct military confrontation.
Referring to Donald Trump’s sustained criticism of NATO and his administration’s pivot away from European security commitments, Robertson said: “Recent days have shown that the role and priorities of the United States have shifted, and will never be the same again.”
This is significant coming from a former NATO chief. The implication is plain: Britain can no longer assume America will be there when it is needed. The special relationship, already strained by the Iran war, is no longer a reliable foundation for UK security planning.
The government’s response
Downing Street pushed back on Robertson’s assessment. A government spokesperson said: “We are delivering on the strategic defence review to meet the threats we face. It is backed by the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war, with a total of over £270bn being invested across this parliament.”
The government has committed to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2027, rising to 3% in the next parliament and to a NATO-agreed target of 3.5% by 2035. The Defence Investment Plan is described as being finalised and due to be published “as soon as possible.”
Critics will note that “as soon as possible” is not a timetable – and that the same phrase has been used since last autumn.
A warning from an ally, not an enemy
What makes Robertson’s intervention so politically significant is precisely that he cannot be dismissed as a partisan critic. He is a Labour peer. He was commissioned by Starmer. He wrote the review that the government is supposedly implementing. He stayed silent for months, trying to work constructively behind the scenes.
The fact that he has now gone public – calling the approach “corrosive complacency,” describing Treasury officials as vandals, and saying Britain is under attack and not safe – is a signal that the gap between the government’s rhetoric on defence and its willingness to fund it has reached a point where one of its own most senior advisers cannot in good conscience stay silent any longer.
As Robertson himself acknowledged, he will warn against opposition parties scoring political points from the crisis, describing such behaviour as “a dangerous luxury” at a moment of genuine national risk. But the warning itself, from a man of his stature and authority, is a political problem that the government cannot easily wave away.
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