The Green Party plans to splurge 2.5% of GDP – more than the current defence budget – on international aid while focusing its strategic defence review on Net Zero. The Mail has the story.
Amid warnings this week Britain is “underprepared” for war, the Greens want to spend 2.5% of national income on supporting developing nations by 2030 – more than the UK’s current defence budget.
This comes as Green leader Zack Polanski told the Daily Mail he backs an “alternative” review into UK defence which focusses on threats to the climate.
With Britain’s enemies circling, Labour last year slashed the UK’s overseas development assistance (ODA) budget to 0.3% of national income to be able to boost military spending to 2.5% by 2027.
But in a policy document seen by this paper, the Greens would devote 1% of national income to ODA, and 1.5% to climate finance – which helps nations cut their emissions and cope with climate change.
The paper explains that ODA and climate finance “need to provide for planet repairs (climate debt) and reparations for colonial exploitations, enslavement and trafficking of people over the past few centuries”.
It adds: “Value has been, and continues to be, extracted from the Global South through unequal trading rules and practices.
“Colonialism and the fossil fuel era reconfigured the world economy in a way that has harmed many countries in the Global South.”
The Green Party would also demand foreign aid be given to less wealthy countries in the form of grants not loans – meaning the UK would never see the money returned.
And the Greens also intend to write off all international debt from least developed countries and those which need support in reaching development targets.
The policy says the British Government should take “a strong international lead” in pursuing this goal with the help of international partners.
It adds: “The rich countries should agree to write off the annual transfer of wealth which goes from the developing countries to the North each year.”
But Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel yesterday branded the Greens’ plans a “complete fantasy”.
She said: “At a time of global conflict twinned with pressure on the public finances, it’s ludicrous that the Greens are prioritising foreign aid over defence spending.
“The first duty of any Government is to keep the public safe – the British public, not foreign publics. Compared to that, foreign aid should be well down the list of priorities.”
This comes as Lord Robertson, an author of the Government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and Labour peer, this week blasted Keir Starmer for prioritising welfare spending over defence – saying that Britain is “underprepared”, “underinsured” and “under attack”.
But Polanski said “the first place” he would focus in reviewing UK defence is our vulnerability to climate change and other “emerging threats” – and called for an “alternative” SDR.
“I think ultimately it needs to be looking much more holistically at other emerging threats such as cybersecurity, pandemic resilience and tackling the climate crisis,” he said.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Green Party has been “infiltrated” by Islamists and is a “danger to society”, its former deputy leader Dr Shahrar Ali has said.
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I bet that breast enlargement muppet can’t believe his luck that people in the lower orders are prepared to believe this rubbish
Why is that far left ideologues like Palanski and Milliband insist that the UK “take the lead” in implementing policies that weaken, degrade and make vulnerable our own country?
If other countries are taking notes, it will be because they see what not to do, and will realise we are not a leader that should be followed. NetZero has imposed the highest energy prices in the western world, and the least secure energy supply. Polanski’s plans, making the UK even more weaker regarding defence, to spend money on other countries, ( presumably even rich countries like India , Pakistan, China etc, as we do now), will have a similar “ no thanks” effect with other countries. Can we have some politicians that put the UK first please – for a change? This altruism is becoming dangerous.
This is not altruism. It’s a bunch of con artists telling the British public something they believe it’ll like to hear to distract from them “redistributing wealth” to their buddies in the UK and abroad.
Without the industrial revolution and colonialism “under developed nations” wouldn’t be recognised as underdeveloped!
These aren’t “nations” but synthetically created, multi-ethnic (or multi-tribe) states roughly aligned with former administrative districts of the empire which really mostly just exist for the purpose of sucking up foreign aid as that’s what the local government uses to remain the local government.
This situation will not improve unil the practice of foreign aid is ended.
WHY do the media & lots of talking heads keep promoting this utter Clown as a possible Prime Minister ? Could it happen ? OR is it going to happen to finish us off ? HELP…….
Didn’t we do a shed load of debt cancellation in the Bliar years with the Gleneagles Agreement in 2005? Don’t tell me that the uselessly managed stone age nations in the third world have gone and racked up a load more, despite all of the aid that has been pumped in to them in the subsequent decades. I wonder how much has gone in funding eternal civil and regional wars in Africa, or more likely, how much is sitting in the bank accounts in Switzerland belonging to the corrupt leaders that these countries all seem to give themselves. I suppose we should be grateful that there is at least a mention of climate in the statement and not just the supposed victims of Israel for once.
Perhaps its time we started demanding reparations from those 3rd world countries we pumped money into for all those years, and yet they are still in the same position or worse. Apart from their leaders, of course, who presumably are very happy with their Swiss bank account balances.
Colonialism and the fossil fuel era reconfigured the world economy in a way that has harmed many countries in the Global South.
That’s a nonsense statement because most of these countries in the so-called Global South didn’t exist until decolonization took place in the second half of the 20th century.
But for the Greens, this obviously doesn’t matter. They’re just a figleaf for the ressource extractionists, that is, the people who want to extract whatever wealth may exist among the common people of Europe because they want it all for themselves.
There was a time when Friedrich Merz (present chancellor of the FRG) was a lawyer working for the hedge-fund manager Christopher Hohn (climate billionactivist, XR funder). By that time, someone from the SPD in Germany stated that “Merz is the face in front of the locust Hohn.” And that’s exactly what these guys are — locusts. They came here to consume everything they can get their hands on and will not leave voluntarily until there’s nothing left but a barren wasteland.
“resource extractionists” – a good phrase.
Joyfully unconstrained by facts, logic or reason.
And there was me thinking white saviour syndrome was a bad thing.
It’s all so complicated.
They’re professional BS-merchants and just relay prefabricated BS they get from their superiors.
For another example of this: People argueing against Reform in Britain use the exact same pseudo-arguments than people argueing against the AfD in Germany. The issue where I noticed this was supposed “women’s rights”.
The Green Party plans to splurge 2.5% of GDP – more than the current defence budget – on international aid
It’s framed as “2.5% of GDP” to obscure the fact that money is to be taken from those who worked for it, and given to those who haven’t worked for it. It’s a system of state-organised thievery. And this whole procedure is not really designed to help the needy. It’s designed to produce exquisite floods of pleasure in the hearts of the state thieves.
We will have to choose between giving them the money while they are still there , or giving g it to them when they come here along with our houses and our daughters.
Yeah, “developing nations” have done so incredibly well with the tiny amount of aid and debt forgiveness that they’ve had, if we give them lots more they will all
be like Switzerland.
The “developing nations” are nothing but a perpetual money extraction scam using the people living there as pretext who must remain forever in misery and need so that the money extraction scam can continue.
Ironically, perhaps, Switzerland is where most of the money we have given developing nations has ended up, in the bank accounts of their ‘democratically elected’ leaders…
Lol, yes good point!