Dr Ben Jones
Teaching Fellow in European Foreign Policy in the Department of European & International Studies at King’s College, London where his main research focus is European defence cooperation. Prior to joining King’s, he worked in various roles in politics and public affairs in Brussels and London, including as Foreign Affairs and Defence Adviser to the Liberal Democrats.
Email: benjamin.i.jones@kcl.ac.uk
UK Election 2024
Section 5: Policy and strategy
50. It’s the cost-of-living-crisis, stupid! (Prof Aeron Davis)
51. The last pre-war vote? Defence and foreign policy in the 2024 Election (Dr Russell Foster)
52. The 2024 UK general election and the absence of foreign policy (Dr Victoria Honeyman)
53. Fractious consensus: defence policy at the 2024 General Election (Dr Ben Jones)
54. The psycho-politics of climate denial in the 2024 UK election (Prof Candida Yates, Dr Jenny Alexander)
55. How will the Labour government fare and what should they do better? (Prof Rick Stafford and team)
56. Finding the environment: climate obstructionism and environmental movements on TikTok (Dr Abi Rhodes)
57. Irregular migration: ‘Stop the boats’ vs ‘Smash the Gangs’ (Prof Alex Balch)
58. The sleeping dog of ‘Europe: UK relations with the EU as a non-issue (Prof Simon Usherwood)
59. Labour: a very conservative housing manifesto (Prof Becky Tunstall)
60. Why the Labour Government must abolish the two-child benefit limit policy (Dr Yekaterina Chzhen)
61. Take the next right: mainstream parties’ positions on gender and LGBTQ+ equality issues (Dr Louise Luxton)
Defence policies are essential components of party manifestos, but they rarely provide the main dividing lines of an election campaign. British politics tends to reflect a broad consensus on defence policy based on NATO membership, nuclear deterrence, relatively high defence spending and readiness to use military force and the maintenance of a broad spectrum of military capabilities. Perhaps the most significant fracture in this consensus was Labour’s commitment at the 1983 and 1987 General Elections to unilateral nuclear disarmament, a pledge debuted in a manifesto later dubbed ‘the longest suicide note in history’. The policy still casts a long shadow, with campaigners tending to view defence as more of a ‘sword’ issue for the Conservatives, with their professed commitment to nuclear weapons and the armed forces, and a ‘shield’ issue for a Labour party with historically more diverse views. Indeed, since Neil Kinnock abandoned unilateral disarmament in the wake of Labour’s 1987 defeat, the party has been careful to avoid being outflanked on defence policy. During his tenure as leader, Keir Starmer has been remarkably effective in this aim. According to YouGov’s polling on the question of ‘Which political party would be the best at handling defence and security?’, Labour slashed a 25% deficit against the Conservatives in 2019 to reach parity by June 2024.
While a decisive section of the British electorate may view a ‘credible’ defence policy as a necessary condition for their support, other issues, particularly the cost-of-living crisis, healthcare and immigration have had far greater salience at this election. On the other hand, the parties have responded to fears over the deteriorating international security situation, particularly the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with a noticeable hardening of the security consensus. The Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos all contained strong commitments to NATO membership, support for Ukraine, continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence via the Trident system and an uplift in defence spending with all pledging to reach 2.5% of GDP (though only the Conservatives put a date on the ambition, to be reached by 2030). The smaller parties took more radical positions, with Reform seeking to outflank the mainstream with a pledge to spend 3% of GDP on defence, while the SNP and Greens continued to carry the torch for unilateral nuclear disarmament. Several of the parties also made pledges to improve the lot of service personnel, though the same issues, particularly that of shoddy accommodation, come around at every election with apparently scant progress between.
Despite the broad consensus among the larger parties, there were also some areas of disagreement. The Conservative push for national service, no doubt in part intended to provide a wedge security issue with Labour, fell quite flat and was comfortably dismissed by others. Although the policy was roundly criticised, the related issue of manning gaps in the services is a growing concern, as is the historically small size of the Army, an issue highlighted by the Liberal Democrats in their pledge to expand its numbers. Regarding cooperation with allies, while the main parties agreed on the importance of bolstering bilateral European security ties, particularly with Germany, the Conservatives were (perhaps unsurprisingly) silent on the question of EU-UK security relations. By contrast, both Labour and the Liberal Democrats found space in their manifestos to call for a formalised relationship to address common concerns. Such arrangements could help repair damage to diplomatic relations and smooth foreign and security policy cooperation. Yet in the field of defence industrial cooperation, where EU institutions have become much more significant players since Brexit, the UK’s absence from the single market and EU industrial policy is a significant barrier to deeper cooperation, even when the UK’s allies acknowledge their worsening international security situation.
With Labour’s resounding election victory, attention will turn to the credibility of its plans for defence, particularly on spending. Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has put the price tag on achieving 2.5% of GDP by 2030 at around £12bn a year, a vast sum in a constrained fiscal environment in which Labour has pledged not to raise personal taxes. While Labour has committed only to meet the target ‘as soon as we can’, there may be domestic and international reputational risk if the target is missed before the end of this Parliament. Labour will hope its proposed Strategic Defence Review, procurement reform and international cooperation will reap efficiencies. Yet they are notoriously hard to capture, particularly when complex equipment projects are prone to cost inflation. In NATO’s 75th anniversary year, Prime Minister Starmer will no doubt pay tribute to Ernest Bevin, the Labour Foreign Secretary who did so much to ensure the US pledged to defend a fragile Western Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Yet if Donald Trump, America’s foremost NATO-sceptic, returns to the White House, it will take all the diplomatic skill of Bevin and then some to keep the alliance on track. The 2024 General Election reflected a fractious consensus on UK defence policy; Labour will soon find out whether its core tenets are fit for purpose.
