The Secretary of Defense has resigned in protest over the lack of funds for the military.
The resignation, announced early on Thursday afternoon, appeared to take the form of a polite disagreement, with Healey telling Keir Starmer in a letter that he was leaving “with great regret and reluctance”.
And yet his resignation letter is a devastating silent attack on the Prime Minister and Chancellor, in which he accuses them of leaving the country unprepared for war and putting military personnel at risk because of insufficiently generous funding.
He said the financial settlement of the Defense Investment Plan, finalized on Monday, “falls far short of what is required for defense and the country at this perilous time”.
Blaming Starmer and Rachel Reeves for the current state of affairs, he said: “You have been unable and the Treasury has been unwilling to commit the resources the nation needs to protect the country at this time of growing threats.”
Healey said he wanted a target of 3 per cent of GDP to be spent on defense by 2030, along with European allies, but indicated that Starmer and Reeves were unwilling to agree to this, despite private appeals.
Remarkably, Healey asserted: “I am forced to make decisions that will reduce the readiness of our forces and increase the risk to personnel on operations and may make our country less safe.”
Healey was one of the most experienced figures in the cabinet, having served in ministerial roles under the New Labor governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
He was also well respected by the securocrats in his tenure at the Ministry of Defence, as this private battle between Treasury funding allocations and urgent warnings about the need for more military spending has been going on since 2024. It has now finally come out into the open.
The motivation for his decision is straightforward and clearly stated. But still, given the Prime Minister’s tenuous position and the looming prospect of a Labor leadership election, there will be speculation about Healey’s future ambitions. He has long been described as a “dark horse” contender for the post of prime minister.
To learn more about the former Secretary of Defense, there is no better source than THIS New statesman PROFILE by our political editor Ailbhe Rea.
(Further reading: How Britain lost control)
