Anneliese Dodds has quit as International Development Minister over Keir Starmer’s decision slash the aid budget by 40% to pay for higher defence spending, saying it looks like following in Trump’s footsteps. The Telegraph has more.
In her resignation letter, Ms Dodds warned that cutting foreign aid would bolster Russia and encourage China to rewrite global rules on the international order.
She said the Prime Minister would find it “impossible” to deliver on his commitment to maintain development spending in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine with the reduced budget.
Ms Dodds, who attended Cabinet and was also an equalities minister, said she backed Sir Keir’s decision to increase defence spending as the post-war consensus had “come crashing down” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
She said she recognised there were “not easy paths” to doing so and had been prepared for some cuts to the aid budget to help pay for the plan to increase military spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – with an ambition of hitting 3% in the next parliament.
But she said she believed the three per cent ambition “may only be the start” given the global picture and urged the Government to look at other ways of raising the money, including by again considering borrowing rules and taxation.
The shock resignation comes just a day after Sir Keir enjoyed one of the most successful moments of his premiership following his meeting with Donald Trump in the White House.
Ms Dodds, who was Sir Keir’s first Shadow Chancellor after he became Labour leader, revealed she had only been told about the cut to her budget on Monday and made up her mind to quit the same day.
She said she delayed her resignation, however, so it did not overshadow the Prime Minister’s crucial trip to Washington. …
She concluded: “Ultimately, these cuts will remove food and healthcare from desperate people – deeply harming the UK’s reputation. I know you have been clear that you are not ideologically opposed to international development.
“But the reality is that this decision is already being portrayed as following in President Trump’s slipstream of cuts to USAID.”
Worth reading in full.
In 2019 Starmer tweeted: “An endorsement from Donald Trump tells you everything you need to know about what is wrong with Boris Johnson’s politics and why he isn’t fit to be Prime Minister.”
How times change…
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