John Healey has resigned as Defence Secretary, and Armed Forces minister Al Carns has also stepped down, delivering a double blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The resignations triggered a crisis at the Ministry of Defence, with ministerial aides Pamela Nash and Rachel Hopkins also quitting.
Funding Row Sparks Exodus
The exodus was triggered by a dispute over military funding. Healey accused the Prime Minister of failing to stand up to the Treasury, which he claimed was unwilling to commit the necessary funds for national defence. Ministers have been locked in a tense battle over how to finance the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP), which is already more than six months overdue.
In his resignation letter, Healey stated that the plan, which he was shown on Monday, "falls well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time."
Carns' Blistering Criticism
Al Carns, a former Royal Marine, resigned with a withering broadside criticising "inadequate" defence funding. He said the "machinery of government itself has been left to decay," highlighting long delays to the DIP. In his letter to the Prime Minister, Carns wrote: "We ask soldiers to fight for this country. In return, we owe them the kit to do the job and the loyalty to stand by them when it's done. We are failing on both. The same failure of seriousness runs through how this country treats the people it asks the most of, in uniform and out of it."
New Defence Secretary Appointed
Dan Jarvis has been appointed as the new Defence Secretary following Healey's bombshell resignation. Jarvis is an Army veteran who served in the Parachute Regiment in Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
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