Ex-Nato chief's chilling warning to Starmer... spend now on defence or Britain will pay a 'cost in blood'

By JASON GROVES, POLITICAL EDITOR Published: 23:48, 7 June 2026 | Updated: 23:48, 7 June 2026 Britain faces a 'blood cost' if Labour keeps dithering on defence, Keir Starmer was warned last night. Former Nato chief General Sir Richard Shirreff said the country could suffer 'catastrophic costs' unless the Government moves to shore up our defences immediately. On Sunday night, ministers were still wrangling over a Treasury raid designed to free up resources to part-fund a strategic defence review completed more than a year ago. One insider described the talks on the Defence Investment Plan as 'chaos'. Defence sources told the Daily Mail that at the end of the process the Ministry of Defence could be left with barely £2billion a year extra – substantially less than Labour spent on removing the two-child benefit cap. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the continuing delays were a 'mark of shame', adding: 'Labour only care about funding welfare, they cannot be trusted with our national security. Last night, ministers were still wrangling over a Treasury raid designed to free up resources to part-fund a strategic defence review completed more than a year ago. One insider described the talks on the Defence Investment Plan as 'chaos'. Defence sources told the Daily Mail that at the end of the process the Ministry of Defence could be left with barely £2billion a year extra – substantially less than Labour spent on removing the two-child benefit cap. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: 'It has been over a year since the Government concluded its review of our Armed Forces. The investment plan should have been published last autumn. This weekend the Mail on Sunday revealed that all five of the UK's current fleet of Astute subs were currently not deployed due to maintenance and other technical issues  Former Nato chief General Sir Richard Shirreff (pictured) has warned the country could suffer 'catastrophic costs' unless the Government moves to shore up our defences immediately 'The military is tearing its hair out waiting for Keir Starmer to make a decision. British jobs are on the line. Our national security is being undermined.' Sir Richard, Nato's former deputy supreme commander in Europe, and one of the authors of last year's review, said further delays were putting the country at risk. 'We've got to secure our country,' he told the BBC. 'It's important to do that, to spend now... what we cannot have is catastrophic costs, not only for treasure but blood downstream. We want to avoid future conflict – Russia is a threat, we've got to deter it.' Sir Richard urged Sir Keir to show 'political leadership' and push through the 'tough choices'. 'Every time there has been a tough choice about defence, Labour backbenchers start sounding off about welfare and the Government backs off. Now has got to be the time that decisions are made,' he said. Whitehall wrangling continued last night even as Sir Keir hosted Volodymyr Zelensky, Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz for a Downing Street summit on the Ukraine war. Sir Richard said it would be 'very difficult for the Prime Minister to look President Zelensky in the eye and indeed his other allies'. The Prime Minister was warned last year of a £28billion shortfall in defence funding. The Treasury deemed the bill unaffordable and is now trying to cut back a 'compromise' figure from £18billion to £15billion. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch (pictured) called the continuing delays a 'mark of shame' and insisted Labour 'cannot be trusted with our national security' British Army 3 Rifles soldiers use a phone-sized electronic screen display, which forms part of the Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK), at an undisclosed training ground less than 50 kilometres from the Russian border in Finland on May 26, 2026 In an extraordinary power grab, Rachel Reeves is also trying to seize control over £6billion in additional funding for a new fighter jet programme, potentially leaving the MoD with just £9billion in new funding over the next four years. By contrast, Ms Reeves has pushed ahead with scrapping the two-child benefit cap at a cost to the taxpayer of more than £3billion a year. In recent days, the Chancellor has ordered Whitehall departments to slash capital spending plans to free up money for defence. The Treasury believes average cuts of 1 per cent could free up around £6 billion. Health, education and the Home Office all face a funding squeeze but the transport and energy departments face the biggest cuts. Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho urged ministers to focus instead on controlling the spiralling welfare bill. 'What they are trying to find over the next few years is £6billion and what we are seeing is that working-age benefits are going to go up by £40billion,' she said. 'The right choice is to tackle the working-age benefits bill, which we know is spiralling out of control. 'We need to reform the welfare system so it's fairer and is not costing the state so much money and that's where I would find the funds for defence, rather than cutting critical infrastructure projects which bring growth.' The parlous state of the Armed Forces has been underlined by a string of revelations in recent days. The Mail reported on Saturday that the Navy's biggest warship, the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, has broken down again, this time off the coast of Norway. Yesterday, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Britain's entire fleet of hunter-killer submarines is laid up in port awaiting maintenance or repairs. Reports yesterday claimed that the Navy has had to rely on Nato submarines to secure the waterways around the Faslane naval base which is home to the UK's independent nuclear deterrent. In a report yesterday, MPs questioned whether the Army's troubled £6.3billion Ajax armoured car will ever be fit to enter service. In a withering report, the Commons public accounts committee also warned that delays to the Defence Investment Plan were undermining Britain's defences and damaging the economy. The plan is designed to provide the funding to implement last year's strategic defence review, which calls for major investments in areas such as drone warfare and missile stocks. Military chiefs are increasingly warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin is 'raising the stakes'  The UK was forced to halt its surveillance flights over the Black Sea in April after a Russian SU-35 jet (pictured) flew 'dangerously' close to an RAF Rivet Joint aircraft. Filmed by RAF crew, it passed between 6 and 15 metres from the nose of the Ministers originally pledged the plan would be released by the autumn of last year but the process has been repeatedly plagued by Whitehall infighting over money. The delays have gone on so long that some defence firms have gone bust waiting for contracts needed to beef up the UK's defences. Sir Keir last week said it would finally be published ahead of next month's Nato summit. Downing Street is pushing to release it this week, but Whitehall sources last night told the Mail that negotiations were still continuing. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chairman of the public accounts committee, said continuing delays meant 'damage has been done... to the nation's credibility, to its safety, to its Armed Forces, and to certainty within its entire defence industrial base'. The Tory grandee added: 'Any government minister attempting to explain away this delay should instead ask themselves what message the bureaucratic drift of the past months has given to the public, as well as the UK's allies and its adversaries, and simply apologise.' Unite union chief Sharon Graham said the continuing delays were 'a threat to British jobs and skills and a threat to national security now and in the future'. The Treasury's decision to raid Whitehall spending programmes has angered other ministers. One government source said: 'The whole point of doing the defence review alongside the spending review last year was so that we didn't end up in this situation. But now it's gone on for so long that we're in it anyway.' But Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy defended the delays, saying it had been important to 'get this right'. He said defence of the nation was 'the first purpose of any Government', adding: 'The money will be found, our commitment to spending 2.6 per cent (of GDP) and then to 3 per cent is absolutely sacrosanct under this Government.' No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. 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