‘Resetting Our Relationships’: Europe is Britain’s Number One Defence Priority, Says New Labour Government

“European security is the new government’s foreign and defence priority”, says the United Kingdom as it signs a defence agreement with Germany, which is light on detail but nevertheless promises closer cooperation and a Europe-first defence policy for London.

Britain’s new government is moving fast to bump the country firmly back towards the European sphere of influence in defence, one of the areas of concern which undoubtedly pushed the British people towards backing Brexit in 2016 in the first place. The newly appointed defence minister is making a two-day tour of European states France, Germany, Poland, and Lithuania to demonstrate this new pivot, but somewhat tempers its very clear rhetoric by grounding the new pro-European position with references to NATO, the trans-Atlantic defence alliance.

The UK’s new defence secretary John Healey said in a statement that the purpose of the trip was: “resetting our relationships with European Allies… [sending] a clear message that European security will be this government’s first foreign and defence priority”. Nevertheless, he said, “NATO is the cornerstone of European defence”, echoing earlier rhetoric from the Starmer government that it would have a “NATO first” defence strategy.

As part of that tour, Healey met with his German counterpart Boris Pistorius and signed what the steadfastly Europhile Financial Times called the “most comprehensive defence co-operation agreement in decades”, which they said pledged to “urgently reintegrate the UK’s defence industry into European supply chains after Brexit.”

Mr Pistorius said of the feeling between Berlin and London: “we want and need to work even more closely together”.

The actual text of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence statement accompanying the declaration was somewhat vague on what has actually been agreed, as explored at greater length in British news magazine The Spectator, for instance, but the shopping list of aspirations published states: “strengthening UK and German defence industries, reinforcing Euro-Atlantic security, improving the efficiency of joint operations, confronting evolving security challenges such as the cyber domain, and supporting Ukraine.”

Germany and the United Kingdom have worked closely together in defence in the past, and no new projects were announced alongside the agreement, suggesting the meeting may have been more about establishing a narrative for the new British government. In the past the United Kingdom militarily occupied West Germany for half a century after the Second World War as part of the bulwark against the Soviet Union. The two countries were senior partners in the Eurofighter Typhoon jet, and the United Kingdom is a customer for Germany’s Boxer Armoured Fighting Vehicle.

The two nations even have a joint Army Engineer Battalion, the German-British Amphibious Engineer Battalion 130, which was stood up in 2021.

Most recently, the two nations worked together on the Airbus ‘Atlas’ replacement for the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. It has been discussed for months whether Germany might even abandon its joint project with France to produce a new jet fighter and throw in with the British-Japanese-led Tempest Global Combat Air project, aiming to produce an advanced sixth-generation fighter by the 2030s.

Wherever the UK-German defence agreement goes, it comes amid a backdrop of increasingly bellicose rhetoric from London, with the new head of the British Army General Sir Roland Walker setting out his vision for a radically changed armed forces to prevent a “global” war. Calling the year from 2027 to ’28 a likely moment for global “detonation” thanks to a “dangerous” Russia emerging from Ukraine and wanting revenge on the West for opposing it, Xi Jinping’s designs on Taiwan, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, General Walker said the UK has to “double then triple our fighting power”.

Speaking at the sidelines of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) land warfare conference this month, the General said his vision was not a war plan, but rather a “not-war plan”, deterring adversaries by making Western defence so effective it deters would-be adversaries from trying their hand. He said, reports the FT: “We are not on an inexorable path but what we do have is an absolute urgency to restore credible hard power in order to underwrite deterrence”.

Unlike many military leaders in the West also foreseeing a difficult decade and pleading for more money from national treasuries to swell their armies to counter it, Walker said he believed changing the military to be more dynamic and more Ukrainian in spirit, essentially, would be enough. He said: “Some still believe that raw troop numbers alone determine fighting power. That is out of date… I don’t need any more troops and I don’t need any more money.”

This perspective appears to clearly mark Walker, a decorated former special forces soldier with extensive combat experience, out against his predecessor in the job, for instance. As reported in January, erstwhile Chief of the General Staff General Sir Patrick Sanders made quite the opposite position known in expressing his view the present crop of young people are the “prewar generation” and a “citizen army” will be needed to man a rapidly expanding armed forces to face off against Russia. It is stated General Sanders was removed from his position as head of the Army a year early over his open criticism of the government cutting numbers of troops.