There are moments when a country simply cannot afford a leadership vacuum, and a dangerous summer in 2026, with war raging in the Middle East and Russia's aggression undimmed, is one of them. Yet that is exactly what Labour has delivered. The Defence Secretary resigned on 11 June over the government's failure to properly fund our armed forces. Eleven days later the Prime Minister was gone too. At the worst possible moment, Britain's defence has been left without leadership.
A Resignation That Should Worry Us All
John Healey did not resign over a personality clash or a Westminster squabble. He resigned because he judged the government's own Defence Investment Plan to be inadequate, arguing it delayed necessary investment and risked leaving our armed forces under-resourced at a time of rising international threats. When a Defence Secretary concludes that his own government will not properly fund the military, that is not a political tremor. It is a flashing red warning light.
If the person in charge of defending the nation does not believe the money is there to do it, every one of us should be paying attention. This was a resignation on principle about the security of the realm, and it deserves to be treated with the seriousness it warrants, not buried under leadership gossip.
A World That Will Not Wait
The world does not pause while Labour sorts out its internal affairs. There is a war in the Middle East. Russia's invasion of Ukraine grinds on, and the threat it poses to European security has not gone away. Our NATO allies are being pressed to raise defence spending substantially to meet the moment. This is not a time for drift. It is a time for clarity, commitment, and strength.
Instead, our adversaries look at Britain and see a government that has lost its Defence Secretary, lost its Prime Minister, and cannot agree among itself how much to spend on keeping the country safe. Weakness invites danger. A nation that cannot decide whether to fund its own defence is a nation that has stopped taking its own security seriously.
Defence Is the First Duty of Government
The first duty of any government is to keep its citizens safe. Everything else, the economy, public services, the rest of the political agenda, depends on that foundation. A government that treats defence as an afterthought, to be squeezed whenever the Treasury wants to balance the books, has forgotten what government is actually for. Labour has shown, by its own Defence Secretary's resignation, that it does not grasp this.
What Reform UK Would Do
Reform UK would fund our armed forces properly, because a credible defence is not optional in a dangerous world. We would set out a clear, serious plan to rebuild the strength and readiness of our military rather than salami-slicing it to plug short-term gaps in the public finances. We would treat our service personnel and veterans with the respect they have earned, and we would never leave the nation's security hostage to a party's internal feuds.
Strength keeps the peace. Weakness, indecision, and chaos do the opposite. Britain deserves a government that understands the difference and that turns up, every day, to do the most important job it has. Right now, we do not have one.