Jacob Solon: International aid should never be ring fenced at the expense of defence

Jacob Solon is a recent History and Politics graduate standing in the 2026 local elections as a Conservative Councillor candidate in Camden.

Britain’s first priority is defence not international aid

The first priority of a government is to defend the realm; however, Britain’s defence has been severely neglected. A defence budget increase, has for some time, fundamentally been needed. Britain’s defence stocks are worryingly low and the British have the smallest army since 1793. With Trump suspending delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine and Admiral Sir Tony Radakin having talked of “wild threats of tactical nuclear use” by Russia, it is now time for Britain alongside Europe to step up.

Sir Keir Starmer has realised this, now pledging to increase the defence budget to 2.5% by 2027 and to fund this rise he has cut the international aid budget. This led to Anneliese Dodds resignation as the international development minister over the government’s cuts to the international aid budget by 40%, from 0.5% to 0.3%, in order for Starmer to implement his planned increase of the defence budget to 2.5% by 2027. Kemi Badenoch has praised Starmer for the cut to aid, saying reducing the aid to pay for defence was “absolutely right.”

Although Dodds herself understands the need to increase defence spending, she suggested that Starmer should have increased defence spending by other means; through taxation and looking at borrowing rules. However, it would have been disastrous for Labour to increase taxes or borrowing, with Reeves already implementing record rates of both these things. Cutting the international aid budget, which has wasted the British taxpayer’s money for decades, was the right thing to do.

To a large extent international aid from the West doesn’t make an overreaching positive difference for the world’s poor. For over 60 years rich countries have given substantial amounts of money to the world’s poor countries. In 2023, rich countries including the UK were spending $250 billion a year on international aid.  Although there have been successes to international aid, such as funding vaccines and clinics; children mortality rates in Africa fell by three-quatres since the 1960s. A third of international aid has gone to Sub-Saharan Africa and this aid has had little tangible difference on economic growth. African real incomes per person is only a little higher than they were three decades ago. Globally, economists struggle to find a link between aid and growth.

There has been a significant amount of international aid being wasted on “vanity projects”, in 60 years Malawians have had more spent on them by aid agencies than by their own government yet there have been little improvements overall. I am not saying that international aid should be cut altogether, it does have its place, however, to fund Britain’s defence, which is a fundamental priority right now, the international aid budget was the right thing to cut.

When I saw Dodds speak at the University of Reading last February 2024, she spoke extensively of creating a utopian Britain where there was equality of outcome and equal representation between men and women and people from different ethnic groups in different professional fields. My question to her was, should we also aspire to have equality of representation of the universities in which MP’s go to in parliament? At the time the question was asked, Anneliese was one out of the 20% of MPs who attended Oxbridge, despite making less than 1% of the population. She struggled to answer the question!

The ideals of leftist politicians such as Dodds which drive their policies, don’t quite match up with reality. These ideals sound moral and virtuous on paper but the world is more complicated than for example, implementing completely equal representation in all professional fields, or Britain having to spend billions of taxpayers’ money on international aid projects whilst the defence of Britain has been underfunded, overlooked and neglected.

In this time of Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, The Conservative Party must make sure the government prioritises Britain’s defence. Labour did the right thing with cutting the international aid budget to increase defence spending and it was about time international development aid spending was re-evaluated. However, Chatham House has said “for the UK to fund its existing ambitions, and respond to growing threats to European security, it may need to set a target closer to 3 per cent.”

For Britain right now defence should be the priority. Britain has still got an inflated welfare budget and is wasting taxpayers’ money in various levels of public spending.

It is the ideal time for the Conservatives, who are in opposition, to re-evaluate the spending of the British taxpayer on all levels so we can get closer to the three percent mark to ensure European security in these worrying times.