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UK needs to ‘spend less on welfare and more on defence’ to support Ukraine, former Shadow Foreign Secretary tells LBC
15 February 2025, 13:25 | Updated: 15 February 2025, 18:41
The UK has ‘very difficult choices to make’ and has to “face up to the fact that we're going to have to spend less on welfare and more on defence” to support Ukraine in its war against Russia, Tory MP Andrew Mitchell told LBC.
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Mr Mitchell, MP for Royal Sutton Coldfield, told LBC’s Matt Frei that Britain has to spend more on defence, as ‘Ukraine is above all a European problem’, and ‘Trump is right’ to call for European nations to spend more on Nato.
The former Shadow Foreign Secretary said: “Many countries in Europe are simply not spending anywhere near, in percentage terms, what America is spending.
“And America is simply not going to fill the bucket when European economies are not doing what they should be doing. So we've got to be absolutely clear that Europe has got to do more.”
Read more: Trump makes plans to meet Putin and end Ukraine war as he says 'the US wants its money back'
It comes after the US has signalled its reluctance to keep spending the money it has been spending on aid to Ukraine and funding for Nato.
Trump said that the US wanted to get back a part of the money it has provided to Ukraine since the invasion in 2022 "in some form".
Earlier this week, Trump incorrectly told reporters that the US had spent $350 billion (£281 billion) on Ukraine, which far outstrips the official US figures. According to a US government oversight body, the total response so far comes to around $183 billion (£147 billion).
"We're putting up far more money than Europe and Europe is in far more danger than we are," Mr Trump said.
"We have an ocean in between, Europe has nothing in between. You know what they have in between? They have Ukraine in between."
Read more: Trump’s shift on Ukraine: America's new approach to NATO and global diplomacy
Mr Mitchell said he hoped there was an ‘all-party’ consensus about spending more on defence, and less on welfare.
“If we are to face what is a clear and present threat from President Putin, there will be difficult choices to be made here. But I think everyone needs to face up to the fact that we're going to have to spend less on welfare and more on defence,” he added.
“The money is not finite (sic.) and therefore difficult choices have to be made. And that's why I very clearly said a moment ago that we're going to have to spend more on defence and less on welfare,
Prof. Anand Menon warns that the EU doesn't have the ability to support Ukraine's war effort alone
“Because, you know, we're through the era when apparently you can do everything and we've now got to face up to these very hard choices. But I think Britain also has, again, on an all party basis, a critical role to play here.”
Andrew Mitchell also told Matt Frei that Britain should be aware of Russia’s ‘expansionist’ ambitions, saying: “What we are seeing is an expansionist Russia, there's no doubt about that.
“If you read what the most senior NATO generals and admirals have been saying about what Russia is doing, there is an unanswerable case that we've got to increase expenditure, that Russia won't stop if they get Ukraine, if Putin gets Ukraine, that won't be the end of it.”
It comes after Trump and Putin had a 90 minute phone call in which they agreed to meet and begin negotiations to end the three-year war.
He added: “We will see how long the bromance lasts between Putin and Trump when the rubber hits the road of what is going to happen in Ukraine.
“But we should be very clear, we are in Zelensky's corner. We are standing up for freedom in Ukraine. And I worry a great deal about President Trump going over the head of the Ukrainian government to Putin.”
Volodymyr Zelensky earlier today called for the creation of an "army of Europe", suggesting the continent could not rely on Donald Trump's United States for its defence.
The Ukrainian leader said Europe cannot rule out the possibility that "American might say no to Europe on issues that threaten it", and noted that many leaders have long spoken about how Europe needs its own military.
