Great Britain's revolving door of prime ministers accelerated in June with the resignation of Keir Starmer, its 6th leader 10 years. As Andy Burnham, the popular former mayor of Manchester, hovered in the wings, and Starmer's approval ratings plunged to an all-time low, the former prime minister was living on borrowed time.
Weak and indecisive and with his domestic policies in shambles, the media had nicknamed him Keir Stumbler.
And then there was his embarrassing feud with President Donald J. Trump over defense and foreign policy.
Starmer's refusal to join U.S. strikes on Iran or to allow the U.S. to use British military bases for anything but defensive operations infuriated Trump, who remarked dismissively of Starmer: "We're not dealing with Winston Churchill here."
But is Britain under Burnham likely to enjoy smoother political sailing with Trump? Many are skeptical. Much depends on whether Burnham can, or will, honor Britain's commitment to spend at least 3.5% of Gross Domestic Product on defense by 2035.
With the national debt and taxes at an all-time high, effectively ruling out more borrowing, it will require an immense act of political courage to divert funds from the government's generous welfare programs and its cradle-to-grave National Health service to pay for more defense spending. Starmer's inability to find the funds he'd promised not only infuriated the White House but also triggered a cabinet rebellion.
John Healey, the well-respected Secretary of Defense, quit, accusing Starmer in a scathing resignation letter of being unable, and unwilling, to provide the resources that Britain needs to keep it safe in an era of growing threats. Healey's resignation was triggered by the unveiling of a long-delayed "Defense Investment Plan," the funding road- map to finance a comprehensive "Strategic Defense Review" that Starmer commissioned in 2025, which called for significantly more British defense spending. Healey said that the draft of the plan would have increased defense spending to only 2.68% of GDP in 2030, as opposed to the 3.5% that Starmer had promised Trump he would spend by 2035. President Trump has long complained, not unfairly, about Europe's unwillingness to pay for its own defense.
His constant harangues about European "free riders" on the U.S. military had prompted the U.K. and European Community members in February 2025 to pledge to increase defense spending. Former defense chiefs have also warned that the reduction in size of British forces means that they could not last beyond the first couple of months of engagement in a "peer-on-peer" war.
A 2024 Defense Select Committee report found that the British army also faces a drastic shortage of infantry fighting vehicles, tanks and ammunition. The army itself — 108,600 people — has never been as small as it is now since the days of Cromwell in the 17th century.
Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of the foreign intelligence agency, MI6, recently told a British broad- caster that the army's actual fighting force could fit inside the Manchester United soccer stadium and there would be seats to spare. To make matters worse, the British Ministry of Defense has long been criticized for its spending — procuring the wrong equipment for missions at too high a price.
The Royal Air Force faces a shortfall of combat aircraft and Chinook helicopters and has too few pilots to fly them. The air force can't refuel its own planes in the air.
Britain's armed forces are losing personnel faster than they can recruit them. Lord David Richards, a former chief of the defense staff, complained about Britain's naval capabilities — once a historic source of pride. "The fact that the Royal Navy, despite its very best efforts, could not put one war-ship out at short notice says it all really," he recently told the Telegraph newspaper.
He was referring to the HMS Dragon, a Type 45 destroyer which was supposed to protect Britain's bases on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus and the country's Middle East- ern allies from Iranian drones and missiles during the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. "The destroyer was stuck in Portsmouth undergoing repairs in February when the war started and took almost a month to reach Cyprus."
In fact, five of Britain's six attack submarines were in harbor awaiting maintenance during the war on Iran, said Lewis Page, a defense expert and former Navy officer.
Britain also lacks a credible defense against ballistic missiles and a modern radar warning system. "We have some jet fighters armed with missiles," he said in an interview. "But it would be too late to see some- thing coming."
Britain, moreover, does not have a "serious drone warfare" capability; and much of what it does produce is sent to Ukraine to help Kyiv against the Russians. In response, the government maintains it is the third-highest contributor in terms of cash to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
But British officials admitted in March that the UK was still failing to meet its NATO defense targets and commitments, echoing a November 2025 parliamentary report finding that Britain would be unable to deploy forces in depth or sustain itself at length due to inadequate resourcing.
Many doubt that Britain's new leadership will result in more military spending. Burnham, 56, a former member of Parliament who served as a minister in the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has had shifting positions on many national security issues. While in 2024 he adamantly opposed new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, a potential source of energy and additional revenue for Britain, he recently said he is "open-minded" about expanding North Sea drilling. He had also taken three conflicting positions in as many months on increased defense spending and how to finance it.
In an interview with Bloomberg in April, he advocated more military spending not by reallocating funds from welfare, but by relaxing Treasury rules to allow in-creased government borrowing.
When critics noted that Britain was already drowning in debt, he said in May that he supported Treasury's rules and that Britain had to find ways to reduce the country's debt. Then in June, after Healey's resignation, he shifted again, saying that the U.K. must not be "squeamish" about cutting welfare to increase funds for defense. If Starmer failed in part for being seen as indecisive, Burnham, to succeed, will have to shed his reputation for being opportunistically malleable.