EXCLUSIVE: Tobias Ellwood said he saw little option but to raise taxes to pay for the military capabilities required.
Existing capabilities – for example Chinooks – are having to be removed to pay for new ones (Image: Getty)
Andy Burnham lacks the experience to handle Britain’s security crisis as he inherits a £4.7 billion defence shortfall, Tobias Ellwood has said. Former defence minister and British Army officer Mr Ellwood told Express.co.uk that the incoming prime minister “has no international experience, and no defence, foreign policy, or national security background. We have to work with that.”
Mr Ellwood warned Mr Burnham must brief the nation on threats: “The threats are already here: cyberattacks, challenges to undersea cables, and grey-zone warfare that we are completely unprepared for.” The army is at its lowest level since the Napoleonic Wars and modernisation is “on the cheap,” with existing capabilities removed to pay for new ones, Mr Ellwood pointed out.
Russia: UK must be ‘better at responding to attacks’ says Ellwood
He added: “We are having to remove existing capabilities – from Chinooks to fast jets – in order to pay for it.”
Funding requires hard choices, Mr Ellwood explained: “You are going to have to spend more money, and that probably means raising taxes. There is no other way of doing it. Absolutely, there is money to be found in the welfare budget.”
He noted welfare spending rose from 5-6% of GDP at the end of the Cold War to 13%, against 2.7% on defence. Mr Ellwood stated: “Ultimately, you will probably have to increase income tax by 1% or 1.5%, which is about the price of a cup of coffee per person per day.”
Mr Ellwood further criticised timelines: “Throughout the current investment plan, the phrase ‘we will be ready by 2035 to do X, Y, and Z’ appears 16 times.
“Basically, we have shunted everything to the right. We are preparing to be war-ready after the war has already come and gone.”
On Mr Burnham’s priorities, he said: “In his big economic platform speech, there was hardly a mention of defence at all. Yet defence, security, and our economy are symbiotically interlinked.”
Britain faces extreme vulnerability, Mr Ellwood warned: “We have 62 undersea cables linking Britain… We are 62 explosions away from Britain being absolutely crippled with no lights, electricity, or water.”
Mr Ellwood stressed the need for a national wake-up: “It may take an acute event – a seismic attack on Portsmouth, for example – for the penny to drop.”
In Ten Steps to Prevent World War 3, Mr Ellwood calls for moving to a war footing, strengthening democracy and rebuilding capabilities. The book, published in 2026, outlines ten practical steps to halt the slide into conflict.
