The Conservative Party has launched a renewed push to reshape Britain’s defence policy, placing frontline experience and industry insight at the heart of its strategy.
Unveiled by James Cartlidge MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, the initiative is part of the party’s broader Policy Renewal Programme, which aims to modernise the British state for the challenges of the 2030s.
According to the party, the new defence strand will be built on engagement with Armed Forces personnel, veterans, and defence sector leaders.
“The world is becoming more dangerous, not less — and our defence policy must reflect that,” said Cartlidge, announcing the initiative. “We are going to rewire the state to be more effective, and defence must be at the forefront of that transformation.”
The Conservatives are inviting contributions from across the defence community, including current and former service personnel and representatives of the UK defence industry, to help shape a policy agenda that reflects practical realities rather than Whitehall assumptions.
Cartlidge has already begun meeting with stakeholders across the sector, with an emphasis on shaping future defence policy through “real-world experience on the ground.”
The launch comes after a period in which the Conservative-led government increased defence spending, returning the UK to a trajectory of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence for the first time in two decades. However, party figures suggest the new phase marks a shift toward deeper reform and strategic renewal, rather than simply maintaining funding levels.
“The people who know how to make that happen aren’t in Westminster — they’re in our Armed Forces, our veteran community and our defence companies,” Cartlidge added. “That’s why I’m asking them to help us shape what comes next as part of our policy renewal programme. If you’ve got ideas about how we can better serve those who serve Britain, my door is always open.”
Shadow Armed Forces Minister Mark Francois MP echoed the message, highlighting the need to accelerate capability delivery while ensuring affordability.
“As part of our policy review, we are keen to engage with representatives from the defence industry — both British companies and our international partners — to explore ways to bolster our military capabilities at an affordable cost and how to speed up the deployment of those capabilities as a deterrent,” said Francois.
The defence renewal effort forms one strand of a wider Conservative policy overhaul as the party prepares for the next general election.
LOL the same party who had 14 years to fix the military but who destroyed it
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What absolute f**king liars.
They cut defence spending under their term from 2.7% of GDP to 1.99 and the only reason it went to 2.3% was aid to Ukraine.
They went to war in Libya a month after telling everyone how we won’t be having any more wars.
Worst of all they lumped the Trident replacement cost on to the core equipment plan in 2010 to balance the budget even through it would not save a penny for ten years. Soemthing the treasury had wanted for years and was shot down by successive Tory and labour governments.
And now they are the party that set us in the “trajectory” to increase defence spending to 2.5%.
I really hope Reform destroy them at the next election.
I totally agree Jim, however, had it not been for Trump, we wouldn’t be heading for 2.5% with a view for 3%.
Labour ‘would’ have done absolutely nothing if their hand hadn’t been forced.
But your comments re the Conservatives are absolutely valid Jim.
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Casual ignoring the financial pressures of the 2008/9 financial crisis the Coalition inherited, and the general mess the defence budget had been left in after 13 years Labour had fiddling around with it. Lots of war, lots of UORs, lots of cuts, and very little real terms investment. Both parties have been equally as bad when it comes to defence.
As always, the voice of reason and reality.
So if it was about cutting the financial deficit post 2008 then why did George Osbourne decide to lump the trident replacement cost onto the core MOD budget when his 2010 projection was for the deficit to be gone by 2015 and the Trident replacement cost would not start to affect spending until well after 2015.
Can you tell me how that’s is labour fault please.
Don’t tell him anything, he’s a Russian stool pigeon
That the Conservatives moved CASD capital budget into the defence budget, that the Conservatives binned off MARPAT and brought FJ Squadrons into single figures. That the RN surface fleet is in the current state is solely down to the tories. All whilst pledging 0.7% of GDP as overseas aid. Which in the last 10 years has been over £120billion!
The Conservatives car crashed defence
Totally agree.
All major spending decisions were stretched out to avoid dealing with the numbers cuts which were needed to avoid more hollowing out.
It is a real serious mess now.
Another round of cuts might have pushed things beyond a point of no return with the erosion of institutional critical mass of knowledge.
Conservative defence policy – simple – cut, cut, cut
The Tories will never be trusted again by many of their previous supporters: once trust has been lost, it can never be regained. Their choices are now severely limited: that reality has not sunk in yet. They still think that the same deceitful nostrums which worked so well in the past, are still functional. They ain’t.
I totally agree Jim, however, had it not been for Trump, we wouldn’t be heading for 2.5% with a view for 3%.
Labour ‘would’ have done absolutely nothing if their hand hadn’t been forced.
But your comments re the Conservatives are absolutely valid Jim.
Given their track record, not worth a jot.
Easy when in opposition.
I’m sure others have noted how all Healey’s howls of hollowed out have ended now he’s in the driving seat.
All the same.
What I would love to see is a cross party defence consensus to eliminate the chance of the continued stupidity of having a major defence review throwing out everything approved by the previous government every time the governing party changes wasting billions at a time, honestly I wonder if first past the post is just no longer viable in this era when it seems to so often make any kind of planning beyond the next election impossible.
This view probably also stems from watching the conservative party fall for their own propaganda regarding free markets, the historical rule is free markets abroad and protectionist markets at home unless you happen to be the most highly productive economy so you always win the free market competition, not free markets at home so everyone else with state sponsorship can buy out and destroy your local businesses. The middle ground is carefully managed state intervention and mutually beneficial trade on comparative advantage terms, not abandoning the entire economy to sink against the protected industries of other countries.
I’m not sure cross-party would do any better, unless they can extract more budget, but it’s worth a shot. And as you imply, it may help stop toing and froing between changes of party. Both main parties are saddled down with unhelpful ideologies and maybe commin ground can help push them to the end of the policy queue.
If the Conservatives really believed in competition, perhaps a televised death match for the right to be Defence Secretary would exclude those without relevant experience. Oh, yes. It’s Friday afternoon and I’m not serious. Please don’t screen scrape the idea and put it in Google AI as news.
Maybe we need to go down the Italian route of passing Naval Laws, so that procurement decisions get concreted in early and it becomes much more difficult to delay them to save short term cash?
The US for its faults seems to do OK in this regard. Their Defence Committees have cross-party collaboration and some semblance of collective responsibility.
A committee with proportional representation with one remit, improve and maintain the ability to defend the realm, no whipped votes, ability to drive change, oversight of delivery and costs, set a spending requirement that the treasury would have to meet or decline publicly, somewhere for the VSO to set out what they need in real time etc. Parties will still have the opportunities to show they oppose a direction or believe things haven’t gone far enough but you’d have collective responsibility and public voting records to “score” the parties on.
We have one but it’s just a job for the boys, every few months they publish a report saying, “we need more frigates innit” or “housing bad” without any ability to make anything happen. Make them work for the money and actually do something worthwhile.
Yet more reviews and research. Much like the % of GDP twaddle. If the economy slips we could be spending 10% of GDP and still making less money available. Until someone commits to spending in real terms, ie. a figure pounds and pence on the stuff we need, it’s all meaningless.
They had their chance and blow it….
Let’s not forget Blair’s ‘peace dividend’. The peace that never was. Basically UK has been on combat ops ever since. Two gulf wars, Kosovo, Afghanistan, et.al. But Blair & co had a lovely time redistributing the MoD budget. God bless em.
Cartlidge has already begun meeting with stakeholders across the sector, with an emphasis on shaping future defence policy through “real-world experience on the ground.”
Has he actually said or committed to anything of substance here?
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I wouldn’t spend a lot of time on this, their defence policy has been clear since Major. Just rehash the 80’s “Labour’s Policy on Arms” ad, replace Labour’s with Conservative’s, wipe the rest of the text, update the uniform.
There I’ve saved the party millions on ad agency fees.
Conservatives are responsible for the 2012 supposed SDR and largely responsible for the vulnerable unprepared mess we’re in now.
Well spending £9 billion on new kit to fill “capability holidays” rather than give it to Mauritius for an island we already own, would be a good start.
Great. Having wrecked UK armed forces, they now tell us they have a cunning plan. Idiots.
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