A petition calling on the UK Government not to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP has attracted just 611 signatures since it was launched on 3 April 2025 — a number that underscores just how little appetite there is for reversing the country’s current defence trajectory.
The petition argues that increasing military spending would “exacerbate international tensions” and make British involvement in wars more likely, thereby placing the public at greater risk. Yet despite those claims, support has been minimal. At its current rate, the petition is projected to close in October with around 1,300 signatures.
This comes at a time when the UK is making one of its most significant defence investments in decades. The Strategic Defence Review, published on 2 June, committed to raising defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, with an ambition to go further. That increase is not arbitrary — it is driven by clear-eyed assessments of the threats facing the UK and its allies, from Russian aggression in Europe to growing instability in the Red Sea and rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific.
The review also outlines a broad programme of investment: new submarines under the SSN‑AUKUS programme, thousands of long-range missiles, expanded cyber capabilities, new munitions factories, and an uplift in armed forces personnel and readiness. These are not symbolic measures. They are designed to ensure Britain remains capable of protecting its interests, deterring aggression, and contributing meaningfully to collective security through NATO and beyond.
Against that backdrop, the petition feels less like a principled mass movement and more like a curio. With only 31 people signing in the past 24 hours, it has not come close to the 10,000-signature threshold that would trigger an official Government response, and remains far from the 100,000 required for parliamentary debate.
Britain is not alone in strengthening its defences. NATO allies across Europe are making similar commitments to increased spending, modernisation and resilience. Far from “exacerbating tensions”, these moves reflect a growing understanding that the era of complacency is over, and that credible deterrence is once again essential.
The country appears broadly supportive of a stronger, better-equipped military, particularly in light of recent global events. As for the petition, it remains online, a quiet outlier, its warning about risk going largely unheard.
Si vis pacem para bellum.
Quite.
The public well understand what has happened in UKR.
It has been forever thus.
Don’t panic Chris, but I think you’ve had a stroke😂😂
but as usual we and them know what the realities of the unstable world and how much on a knife edge that Putin is pushing us towards. what will their attitude be when Russian are having a may day parade on the mall?I had one in 2010, I’ve been in a wheelchair ever since.😭
. probably the green open toes sandals brigade you can you can see on protest walks in London acery week.W⚓KRS
A good propaganda effort on behalf of the government Craig. The SDR agreed to an already existing and delayed decision to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 27/28. That assumes that GDP growth remains steady otherwise the increase could mean spending less money in real terms. The “ambition” is in ten years and subject to the phrase “If the budget allows” so it could mean NIL.
As for the broad programme fo investment all we have seen so far is stagnation, following on from the Tories, who incidentally did promise 2.5 per cent now.
AUKUS subs, again already agreed in fifteen to twenty years; 3,000 missiles of which type, the opening of munition factories, primarily in Scotland and an increase in numbers in the armed forces. How?
People who are against defence spending are perfectly correct – it is wrong. Sadly, it is also necessary. In an ideal world Russia wouldn’t be attacking Ukraine and threatening to nuke London. In an ideal world no country would need a standing army. It isn’t about ‘spending a lot on defence good’, it’s about ‘spending a lot on defence necessary.’ As to how much? Trump is a bully. He threatens and attempts to intimidate his friends. 99% of what he says and does I am totally against. When he says ‘countries need to be spending 5% of GDP on defence’ – might quibble with the exact percentage, but I agree with the general idea. And I hate saying that I agree with him on something!
In a world with no need for defence spending, would be the same world with no need for prisons, police, probation service etc etc. I want that world, but until that impossible dream is here, we tool up.
As the old saying goes, ” you pray for peace on earth and I’ll keep you covered, just in case”.
but there will always be a need for beer thank god 😁
Very true!
Couldn’t agree more with that Andy – well said.
It is time this country went back to the defence posture of walking quietly, while carrying a cricket bat.
Unless the country is safe Education, Health is for nought.
Michael, the trouble was that we did not have a big enough or effective enough cricket bat. This belated and modest strengthening of our Armed Forces should help.
I did say “ it is time” meaning we need to return to this defence posture.
Despite big losses in UKR, Russia is emboldened by Trump’s indifference to the fate of its NATO allies.
Russia is spending 6% GDP on its military, plus it gets a lot of help from Iran, North Korea, and China.
It’s not warmongering, it is a reality that we cannot afford to ignore geopolitical events and hope that they won’t affect us.
We have to prepare for the worst case scenario.
Russia is spending at least 19% of its budget on defence….
I wonder who instigated it? Some uni student offended, or someone like Diane Abbot and the Labour Left?
First to complain, first to hide under the table screaming for protection by armed men and women prepared to do violence on their behalf……
👍
We ´re sure russian services did not instigate it: they would get better results.
Diane Abbot is one of the worst politicians out there. At least she’s in the back benches where she belongs. Like when she thought 10,000 police would cost £300,000 over four years .
Stop the war coalition?
An anti-vaxxer pacifist. No comprehension of the real world.
Underlines not Underscores
We have a major problem with defence in the UK. Due to the austerity peace dividend cutbacks we are left with next to no home defence capability and are increasingly if not solely reliant on the all or nothing existence threatening option of nuclear retaliation. The problem with this therefore is that at what point do we initiate a response with these weapons? Is it after a few undersea cables and oil platforms are destroyed, an airbase obliterated, or a couple of our few air defence destroyers and accompanying aircraft carrier with half our F35 fleet sunk? Is a nuclear response proportionate? And what happens after the on patrol Vanguard submarine has exposed its whereabouts and let off its handful of missiles? We cannot adequately defend our air space with anything other than a handful of aircraft operating out of then defunct air bases, and we certainly have no adequate ammunition re-supply capability, or the means to scale-ably produce replacement weapons and systems. If we don’t have any other form of conventional defence, much like a honey bee, then the only option is that nobody survives. What real choice is that? And faced with that choice the likelihood of not unleashing MAD reduces even further.
Due to these long standing cutbacks we have no real resilience, no home guard backstop, no civil defence capabilities and even if we have invoked nuclear armageddon and an aggressor decides enough is enough, what then?
Our nuclear capability is no more than a means of retaliation after an imaginable event. The policy fails because it assumes that we will always be left alone with no interference in our affairs because of the risk of a nuclear response. Real defence is based on credible and ample conventional capability able to deal with potential peer on peer threats. It is not sufficient to scale our forces on the basis of only ever barely carrying out police actions in third world countries, and even that is reliant on other countries. Only having the capacity to present a short term brigade expeditionary force after denuding what is left for the homeland is far from credible.
We have placed far too much emphasis on nuclear backstops in the hope or expectation that the US will appear over the horizon on a just-in-time basis. Defence must, in order to have any credibility, be able to defend our borders and infrastructure for years if necessary as well as be able to protect supply lines of vital raw materials. This includes upping our medical and care resources as they are just as important as front line troops, and that every citizen has a role to play.
Whether or not we retain a nuclear backstop is one question, but without a credible conventional defence and resupply capability it is a moot point if there is any real value in the expenditure on that one all or nothing system. Those costs could be much better spent reinforcing non-nuclear forces, and boosting national resilience capabilities, which incidentally also support our armed forces and gives them something to come home to!
While I’d love to declare victory it seems a bit early: I have no doubts that a petition in favour of defence spending wouldn’t do well either.
The general public simply aren’t bothered about defence.
Most people believe that both the main parties have had a strong attitude towards defence in the past and consequently believe that Labour and Conservative claims they are strong on defence are broadly true. Most people have little idea how much kit or people we have. They tend to rely on the Government of the day spending what they believe is necessary. Most are aware of NATO and conseqently know we will not be fighting alone. A difficlut problem to solve. First you have to explain what we have and then explain why that might not be enough.
“An Online Petition has attracted just 611 signatures”
Well that’s way more people than ever comment on here, kind of underscores the amount of interest that these online defence sites attract too.
“Incoming, take cover”.
Commenting.
How many read daily, subscribe, but do not comment?
I’d suggest tens of thousands.
Hi Daniele,
A quick search on line shows that UKDJ had 2.8 million visits last month down from just over 4 million in March… About 50% bounced, i.e. came and left… Quite a reasonable traffic level.
Cheers CR
Great answer. Was expecting a few upset regulars !
Makes you wonder why just a handful actually comment when millions just bounce.
Hi halfwit,
Most websites have a high bounce rate. 50% is actually quite a low level for websites like UKDJ. The average stay on the website is just over a minute which I believe includes the few seconds that a ‘bounce’ so quite a few people are probably reading stuff I recon.
Good news for George and the team if true.
Cheers CR
Morning CR.
My comment simply referred to and compared, the small amount of actual votes gained by the “online” poll/actual number of commentators who contribute “online” here. (Multi account posters not withstanding).
Basically, it appears that the vast majority of the population “cares not one jot”.
Have a great week to you and everyone else here, I’m on Holibobs from now.
As in take the trouble to comment.
As in different individual people who comment on here.
Just like I wrote.
Cheers HF.
It’s weird how few people engage with Defence. There are at least 100k actually in the forces, and tens of thousands more working directly in the industry.
Yet sites I would consider to be the largest in the UK for Defence have comparatively tiny engagement online. Do the vast majority simply not mind, or not engage?
Plus MoD Civil servants, plus veterans and families.
No idea. Indifference?
Morning, many defence sites are info only, non interaction so no way to gauge interest other than stats. Places like FB and X have many casual interactions (mostly un-educated, clueless and wide of the mark) which prove that “everyday Joe” does have a modicum of interest but it’s eclipsed by the endless stream of rubbish.
This site does provide an outlet for the few of us who actually share an interest though.
“Wonder is the beginning of all wisdom”.
IMHO The underlying issue isn’t a lack of willingness to understand and embrace the present need for increased Defence spending amongst the overall U.K. public. It’s the almost complete lack of informed debate, information, mass media coverage or truly positive Political leadership, it’s like no one wants to come out and bluntly say it as it is. Well no one who can genuinely command respect and / or really orate and engage the public with a message that our Wokeist leaning mass media and liberal elite can’t just ignore.
For those that don’t think that the BBC has a wokeist, left leaning agenda I’d suggest going onto iPlayer and watching the 6pm news from last Wednesday and compare how much time was devoted to the NATO spending targets compared to Gaza etc etc etc.
I’d actually get the leaders of the 4 main parties in a room and challenge them to unify, get behind the message and even draft in a few past leaders such as Bo Jo, Brown and Theresa May to go on the Media info circuit.
I watched Laura Kuenssburg this morning and the subject of next weeks spending review was discussed by a panel. One of them was Dan Snow and he nailed it. Spending money on bombs and things to kill people is awful, it’s madness but right now it’s 100% necessary and we all need to realise that it’s necessary and it will hurt.
But and I’ve said this elsewhere I’d do the one thing that has to be done well in advance of actually needing to do it.
There is a need to re examine the Civil Contingencies act 2004 as right now there is no mechanism for re introducing Conscription even in an emergency.
Get that sorted and issue notice to register for all 18 to 35 year olds as available for the draft or have reserved occupations, that should spark some interest and wake folks up.
We have 600,000 youngsters classified as NEETs, so getting those through the post with penalties for non compliance should encourage them to get of their bums and get a job or even join up.
Sorry Sunday Rant over.
So… Defence spending is on the ‘up’, and private companies are earning millions and billions, from military expenditure. I cannot help but wonder, if Putin and all other despots, have shares in western arms and munitions companies.
I pose this question, as I honestly believe that Russia, will NOT attack any NATO Country. Lets be honest here… if Russia did attack NATO, Russia would suffer catastrophic retaliation.
Putin may well be a b******, a despot or whatever else you may want to call him however, he is not mentally unbalanced.
I see where you are coming from,can we actually take that risk though? With TACOs attitude who knows what he might think he can get away with.
Feel sorry from them, might go over a give it a sympathetic sign.
These people should go to Ukraine for a holiday .Then see about signing a petition .
And in the real world
“Dr Fiona Hill, who served as the White House’s chief Russia adviser during Donald Trump‘s first term, said the UK is in “pretty big trouble”, warning that the country is stuck between “the rock” of Russia aggression and the “hard place” of an increasingly unreliable US under Mr Trump.”
“Russia has hardened as an adversary in ways that we probably hadn’t fully anticipated,” Dr Hill told The Guardian, concluding that “Russia is at war with us”.
“Arguing that the Kremlin has been “menacing the UK in various different ways” for years, she cited “the poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations, all kinds of cyber-attacks and influence operations. The sensors that we see that they’re putting down around critical pipelines, efforts to butcher undersea cables”.
Russia GDP is about $2 trillion. Even if they spend 15% of GDP on defence that gives them $300 billion. Total GDP of Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Netherlands is about $16 trillion. If those countries spend 3% of GDP on defence that gives $480 billion. Therefore ENATO can outspend Russia even without any contribution from other (smaller) countries or Canada and without reliance on the US. Surely 3% is enough and the US/Trump call for 5% is unnecessary, or is it because Trump expects the extra money to be spent on US weapons? Obviously we don’t want to take on Russia without the involvement of the US, but I would like to see ENATO be able to deter Russia without the back up of the US.
I didn’t think the far-right conspiracy-mongering Heritage Party had that many supporters. I imagine more like 6 not 600… But they’re known to buy ‘likes’ and ‘ratings’ on social media, so I bet most of that 600 was from bots… 🤷🏻♂️
In a way its a shame that it got so few votes. If the general population were more actively engaged in thinking about defence issues, inevitably there would be a reasonable number who oppose increased spending. The low turnout on this petition partly reflects how disengaged many are on this topic, and that is actually a shame.
Its almost a shame it got so few signatures. If defence issues were more on people’s minds, i imagine a lot more would choose to sign this. There are more than 600 people in the UK who don’t think we should increase defence spending (and there should be – its a valid view to argue even if not one many here would agree with). Such a low signature count I think reflects how little attention people are giving to this issue
Happy Birthday Fleet Air Arm🇬🇧🥳👌, Here’s to the next 💯. Fly Navy😀🕳️ btth.
”To secure peace is to prepare for war”