Sir Keir Starmer has suffered another hammer blow to his authority, as the armed forces minister followed John Healey in leaving the Government over a dispute about long-term funding for the military.
Al Carns quit as a defence minister on Thursday evening, writing to the Prime Minister to tell him he could not defend “a level of investment I know to be inadequate to the task”.
Mr Healey had earlier resigned as defence secretary claiming Sir Keir had been “unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling”, to provide adequate funding for the Defence Investment Plan (Dip).
The Dip, a blueprint for investing more in the military over a sustained period, was originally called for by the Strategic Defence Review almost exactly a year ago and has been long delayed by wrangling over funding.
In his resignation letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Carns wrote: “I have sat in the rooms, seen the assessments, and spoken to the commanders who will be asked to do more with less, and I cannot in good conscience stand at the dispatch box and defend a level of investment I know to be inadequate to the task.
“A serious country funds its defence to meet the threat it actually faces, not the threat it wishes it faced.”
