Poll reveals split over UK govt's spending priorities

A new public survey ahead of publication of the United Kingdom government's spring financial statement shows a significant majority of people who voted for the governing Labour Party regard the country's welfare system as a bigger priority than increasing defense expenditure.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has recently made major policy announcements heralding a boost in defense spending and cuts in benefits payments, but the poll in the Financial Times newspaper, carried out by consultancies Stonehaven and Public First, showed 56 percent of Labour Party supporters prioritized supporting people who are unable to work, with 35 percent choosing prioritizing defense.

On Wednesday, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will set out the government's spending plans, and how they will be funded. The prevailing feeling is that there will be no more tax rises, something polls show the public regards as unacceptable, or increases in government borrowing, so financial reprioritization will have to be funded by cuts.

At the same time as the increasingly tense security situation across Europe has seen spending on the military become a greater political concern, significant cuts to the benefits budget have drawn criticism from many different sectors of society and also within government ranks.

Last week, Starmer announced the restructuring of a welfare system he called "fundamentally broken" and that he inherited from the previous government, with measures he says could save up to 5 billion pounds ($6.5 billion) during the next five years.

"This government will always protect the most severely disabled people to live with dignity," he said. "But we're not prepared to stand back and do nothing while millions of people — especially young people — who have potential to work and live independent lives, instead become trapped out of work and abandoned by the system. It would be morally bankrupt to let their life chances waste away."

The poll also showed that Starmer had already played two of the strongest cards acceptable to the majority of voters to increase military expenditure.

These are increased taxes on businesses, and cuts to overseas aid, a policy that has also come in for a lot of internal criticism. The other areas of least public resistance to cuts are in transport and renewable energy.

At the end of February, it was announced that from April 2027, defense expenditure would be increased to 2.5 percent of GDP, with the aim of reaching 3 percent in the next parliament.

The announcement was made following demands from United States President Donald Trump that members of the NATO should aim to commit to spending 5 percent of GDP on defense. In 2024, only five NATO members spent more than 3 percent of their GDP on defense.

When asked if his decision to increase military expenditure had been the result of pressure from Washington, Starmer said it was "very much my decision, based on my assessment of the circumstances that we face as a country".

But Labour Party lawmaker Sarah Champion, chair of the House of Commons' international development committee, said "cutting the aid budget to fund defense spending is a false economy that will only make the world less safe".