Defence Secretary warns adversaries could attack by 2030 as households urged to stockpile supplies
Wes Streeting has said Britain must be ready for war in 1,000 days as Russia intensifies its hybrid warfare against NATO.
The Defence Secretary warned that Britain’s enemies could be in a position to attack the country by 2030 and it must “be ready with our allies to fight and win”.
Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Streeting said: “My defining priority… is to make sure that this country is ready to fight and win a war.
“To prevent the worst, we have to prepare for it. In the first instance, that means expanding our capabilities so our adversaries think twice about attacking us. Should that fail, we must ensure that Britain is ready for war.”
Mr Streeting issued the message days after the Government launched its “Be Ready” campaign, advising households to stockpile non-perishable food, bottles of water, blankets and radios in the event of a cyber-attack or severe weather incident that could shut down critical national infrastructure.
PAccording to the advice, Britons should prepare to live for at least three days without access to a supermarket or an electronic payments system.
The government warning was issued after websites across the world were shut down when two AI companies discovered a critical cyber-security flaw in PHP, the programming language that runs about 70 per cent of websites.
Earlier this week, The Telegraph revealed Russia was deploying fishing trawlers to spy on Britain’s critical undersea cables.
Ministers confirmed that Moscow was using “commercial proxies” to threaten vital undersea infrastructure. The Government subsequently laid out plans for cable saboteurs to be given lengthy jail terms.
Highlighting the imminent threats facing Britain, Mr Streeting said: “Our adversaries’ willingness to harm us is not new. What has changed is their capacity.
“By 2030 their force strength and war economy could put them in a position to attack. That gives us a little over 1,000 days to complete our mission: to be ready with our allies to fight and win. This Government will make sure it is mission accomplished.”
Mr Streeting also warned that the strategic objective of preparing for war was being lost “amidst a fixation with percentages and dates”, the strongest signal yet that John Healey, the Chancellor, would not commit to spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030 in Wednesday’s Budget.
He wrote: “I am not saying they are not important debates. I am certainly willing to have them, especially with those refusing to take any responsibility for the consequences of their failure to fund defence when they were in government.
But since Mr Healey was appointed Chancellor in Andy Burnham’s Cabinet, the Government has shifted emphasis from this 3 per cent goal to Nato’s defence spending commitment of 3.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035.
Last month, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, accused Mr Burnham of “kicking defence spending into the long grass” by pushing the problem of a significant increase in defence spending to almost 10 years into the future.
Mr Streeting added: “The public want to see us doing more and investing more. That comes with choices and trade-offs for government spending in other areas, so I feel sharply the responsibility on my department to use every penny wisely.”
In July last year, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, the former Army chief, warned that Britain had less than five years to prepare for war with Vladimir Putin and needed to start building bunkers and investing in air defence.
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Gen Sanders told The Telegraph: “I don’t know what more signals we need for us to realise that if we don’t act now and we don’t act in the next five years to increase our resilience … I don’t know what more is needed.
“The world has become as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than it was in the Cold War and so I always worry about the layers of security we have, but I worry more about our resilience, our ability to recover from things, from strikes, to protect our civilian population, to make sure the civilian population understands that these are no longer things that happen elsewhere, they could happen in the UK.”
Gen Sanders also criticised Mr Healey for his refusal to set out plans to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030.
Andrew Griffith, the shadow chancellor, has meanwhile called for Healey to resign if he fails to set out how the UK will spend a 3 per cent share of the economy on defence by 2030.
Gen Sanders told The Telegraph: “I don’t know what more signals we need for us to realise that if we don’t act now and we don’t act in the next five years to increase our resilience … I don’t know what more is needed.
“The world has become as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than it was in the Cold War and so I always worry about the layers of security we have, but I worry more about our resilience, our ability to recover from things, from strikes, to protect our civilian population, to make sure the civilian population understands that these are no longer things that happen elsewhere, they could happen in the UK.”
Gen Sanders also criticised Mr Healey for his refusal to set out plans to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030.
Andrew Griffith, the shadow chancellor, has meanwhile called for Healey to resign if he fails to set out how the UK will spend a 3 per cent share of the economy on defence by 2030.
Mr Griffith said: “By the end of his Budget statement, John Healey must have fully funded 3 per cent defence spending, or resign.
“We are living in an era of extraordinary threats, and yet the Chancellor is dithering over finding the money to pay the country’s insurance premium.
“No firm would be left unscathed by a serious attack on UK soil. It’s time for John Healey to get a grip, becaus
Sabrina Miller, The Telegraph
