The world is a scary place right now. In the period after the Second World War there was a period of optimism, believing that in general things were moving in the right direction – more liberal attitudes, more equality, better health and happier lives for more people.
The new world order, where the planet is dominated by two superpowers, hand-in-glove and led by megalomaniacs, has taken us to a place at least as frightening as the 1930s.
Clearly, we can’t rely on The USA to defend us against Russian aggression any more. We will have to step up to the plate and look to provide our own defences. (What a pity we left the European Union) But to take money away from the international aid budget to do so is so unfair. And actually, it is counter-productive. By doing even less to reduce poverty and hunger, we create more anger, more desperation and a much more unpredictable generation of angry young men.
It may have been easy to take money from foreign aid but there were other sources of money. 34 million cars clog up UK roads and an extra £100/year car tax could yield an extra £3.4 billion a year, while according to the RAC restoring just 5p/litre of duty would raise £2.3 billion a year. A total of £5.7 billion, which would also help tackle congestion and the climate crisis. As Ellie Chowns, one of our Green MPs said
“It’s horrifying to see Keir Starmer follow Trump’s lead, gutting our international aid budget to increase defence spending. This is naive populism playing with life-and-death decisions.”
While short-term the Trump/Putin alliance might be the biggest threat, we need to look at long-term threats too. Cyber security (Russia seems to be good at cyber attacks on democracy), Climate Change (the Uk and big business seems to be rowing back on its commitments to a low carbon world, in a desperate rush for growth) and food insecurity (world inequality continues to grow, fuelled by changes such as the aid cut) are the long-term threats, which are defence policy needs to address as well.
Cllr Jill Perry