The UK’s ambassador to the USA, Christian Turner, penned an opinion piece this week by declaring that Trump is “correct” that allies must spend more and that Britain has “heard that message” and is “acting on it,” referring to Starmer’s new Defence Investment Plan (DIP).
Starmer announced £298bn of investment, including £15bn of additional spending on top of last year’s Spending Review, over the next four years, saying the plan goes “further still” in response to growing threats and the changing nature of conflict.
President Trump has been consistent, and he is correct: America’s allies must do more for their own defense and for our collective security, @CTurnerFCDO writes in the @NYPost. Britain has heard that message — and we are acting on it, putting our money where our mouth is.…
— British Embassy Washington (@UKinUSA) July 2, 2026
We are investing McDonald’s kind of money!
Turner even resorted to childish analogies to try and impress Trump, noting the new defense plan is “more than enough money to buy all 32 NFL franchises—or the McDonald’s Corporation”
What Turner is missing, or perhaps deliberately hiding, is that this loyalty to the USA, which he is so desperate to show, is coming at the direct expense of jobs in the UK.
Khem Rogaly of Transition Security Project (TSP) calls the DIP a luxury for the Ministry of Defence and austerity for everyone else.
“It’s luxury for the Ministry of Defence and austerity for everyone else.”
Our Co-Director @KhemRogaly for @novaramedia
pic.twitter.com/yAJBTv6v0M
— Transition Security Project (@TransitionSec) July 1, 2026
The TSP analysis, published in the Guardian, reveals the devastating truth the Government doesn’t want you to see.
For every job defence creates, infrastructure cuts destroy five. The net result: a loss of approximately 10,000 UK jobs. As Professor David Edgerton put it, the “defence dividend” is “broadly speaking a con.”
Polanski slams defence splurge
The Green Party’s Zack Polanski also reshared TSP’s findings and called out the Government for obscuring the job costs of the defence splurge.
New research by @TransitionSec tells the truth that this Government won’t tell you.
Infrastructure cuts to pay for defence will cost 10,000 jobs.
We need proper defence – but we deserve an honest conversation about what really makes this country safehttps://t.co/czfOke5Rch— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) July 2, 2026
Unison secretary Andrea Egan also slammed the DIP, calling it costly and wasteful. She said:
This is costly and wasteful: every extra pound spent on defence is money taken away from schools and hospitals. Let’s invest in people, not more war abroad.
Rogaly said the UK needs public investment in other urgent priorities than defence, like the cost of living crisis and the climate transition.
He said:
We are hearing about the crisis of maternity care today, in the NHS; while they might not have cut day-to-day funding of the NHS today, they will have cut some of its capital budget – that’s money that goes into repairing hospitals, into repairing our health infrastructure.
The special relationship that isn’t
Turner’s opinion piece on the DIP boasts of Britain’s loyalty to Washington while remaining silent on the British workers paying the price. Perhaps that’s because the ambassador knows all too well the “special relationship” he is so desperate to revive doesn’t exist.
Just months ago, Turner was caught on a leaked recording telling British students that the US doesn’t really have a “special relationship” with the UK anymore, claiming that title “probably” belongs to Israel.
Trump is also unlikely to be satisfied with an obsequious op-ed or Starmer’s nauseating toadying.
Overnight, he posted that it was “ridiculous” that the NATO relationship between the US and other members was not “reciprocal.”
Another Trump tantrum. But if it were up to Turner and Starmer, they would throw more public services at him to solve the problem.
Featured image via the Canary
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