Mahra was just 31 years old when she was forced to seek refuge in a camp. A mother of four, and expecting a fifth, Mahra was one of 4.5 million people in Yemen displaced by the Saudi-led war, and one of 21 million people in need of urgent humanitarian aid. Conflict had compounded an already dire famine in a country ravaged by drought, causing widespread malnutrition.
One day, while fetching water, Mahra collapsed. With the help of UN-funded healthcare, Mahra survived. Her unborn child did not.
On Tuesday, MP after MP stood up in Parliament to defend the Prime Minister’s enormous annual increase in ‘defence spending’. Did any of them stop for a moment to think about what this actually means? Since 2015, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s combat aircraft used for the bombing raids were supplied by the UK. Over that period, British arms companies earned more than £6 billion in sales. Even before Britain started bombing Yemen directly in 2024, it was providing the weapons for a campaign that killed more than 150,000 people from military action, and left hundreds of thousands more dead from disease and famine. This is the reality of ‘defence spending’.
The government has been widely criticised for cutting foreign aid to fund its increase in military spending, and rightly so. This decision will not just harm the victims of war, like those in Yemen, but will fuel the very conditions that lead to war in the first place. Eight in ten of the world’s poorest countries are suffering – or have recently suffered – from violent conflict. A grown-up approach to foreign policy would look at the underlying causes of war and alleviate them. This government is choosing to accelerate the cycle of insecurity and war instead.
It was only this month that the government published videos bragging about the deportation of ‘illegal’ migrants, parroting right-wing attacks on asylum seekers. Now, by spending more on bombs and spending less on aid, the government is actively pursuing a strategy it knows will increase displacement. This may appear contradictory, but it makes perfect sense for a government intent on abandoning vulnerable people, home and abroad. Cutting foreign aid was a ‘tough choice’, we were told. So, too, was cutting winter fuel allowance, cutting disability benefits and keeping the two-child benefit cap. Why is it that the ‘tough choices’ always seem to hit the poor?
We will look back at this decision in years to come, and take stock of its lasting, catastrophic consequences. If the Prime Minister wants to take pride in militaristic jingoism, then he must accept the shame of a more unstable and unequal world it helps create. Perhaps he should take a moment to pause, reflect and ask himself what happened the last time a Labour Prime Minister appointed himself the messiah of the free world.
This month was the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Reflecting on the deadly, daily grind of First World War-style trench warfare, I asked a simple question in Parliament: ‘Could we just, for one moment, take a moment to reflect on the hundreds of thousands of lives that have been lost?’ From the beginning, I opposed Russia’s invasion and called for an end to the conflict as soon as possible to save human life. Three years on, and hundreds of thousands of grieving mothers later, I renew this call. There is no glory to war – there is only death and destruction. When leaders neglect to use the language of peace, they should remember that it’s those who are sent to die on the battlefield who end up paying the price.
Meanwhile, the government is failing to tackle what is by far the largest threat to global security: climate disaster. As we speak, people are dying from droughts and floods, yet their lives aren’t deemed important for emergency press conferences outside Downing Street. They don’t have a place in a macho political strategy based on beating one’s chest in the name of war.
Instead, the government’s thoughts are reserved for those who profit from destruction. This week, the Defence Secretary said that military spending can be ‘a driver of economic growth’. What he really means is that taxpayers’ money will be paid directly to arms companies. If the government was really interested in building a safer world, it would understand that there is no such thing as growth on a dead planet, and spend the £13.4 billion on species-saving resources like renewable energy instead.
The next time a politician tells you they need to increase ‘defence spending’ to keep people safe, think of people like Mahra, forced to escape British-made bombs. Think of the children in this country going hungry because money that could have been spent on their food is being spend on weapons and bombs instead. Security is not the ability to destroy your neighbour. Security is the ability to get on with your neighbour. Think of the kind of society we could build if politicians had the slightest interest in building a world of peace.