Rishi Sunak has pledged to lift UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of the decade and said Britain’s European allies should follow suit because the world is in its most dangerous state since the end of the cold war.
The pledge would mean defence spending rising gradually from 2.32 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent by 2030, well above Nato’s 2 per cent defence spending target.
The UK prime minister made the announcement at a joint press conference in Warsaw on Tuesday with Jens Stoltenberg, Nato secretary-general. Sunak conceded that the world’s attention had been on the crisis in the Middle East but said the west could “not lose sight” of Russian aggression on European soil.