Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the UK needs to go further than today’s announcement on defence spending by cutting welfare and net zero spending.

Speaking on GB News, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said:

“Last week on GB news, we suggested that overseas aid should be cut to fund a boost to defence spending.
“Today, Sir Keir Starmer has followed our advice.
“This is a remarkable step for a Labour Prime Minister, who for the first time, is moving against the internationalists in his party to put the domestic national interest first.
“Russia is a threat. Putin is dangerous. His invasion of Ukraine was fundamentally wrong, and the one unforgivable act if you believe in a world order legitimised by the nation state.
“If sovereign borders are not sacrosanct, there is and can be no peace.
“We have been asleep. Under the coalition. It was assumed, as it was after the First World War, that there would be no war for 10 years. This left us unprepared, and support for Ukraine has left us under stocked in terms of munitions.
“The defence budget has been consistently cut since the end of the Cold War, as we have grown fat on welfare.
“But even the money we’ve allocated to defence has been used wastefully on procurement schemes that never met budgets and produced unsatisfactory equipment.
“The great day of reckoning is now upon us, as Donald Trump looks to an aggressive America First policy, and we have to defend our own Isles.
“The shibboleth of comfort has to go. The wasteful expenditure on overseas aid will be cut down to half the legal target of 0.7%.
“Yet this is not enough. We are doing all by halves. We need a bigger economy and to get people back to work.
“The prime minister will need to cut the welfare budget, and the net zero nonsense needs to end too.
“We cannot make the argument we need if our energy cost is four times that of the United States and over 10 times that of Russia. We will simply find we can’t afford to make munitions.
“The luxuries of idle prosperity will have to go, because, as Vegeta has told us, 1500 years ago, if you want peace, prepare for war.
“This is what we need to do now, and Sir Keir has made an encouraging, but modest start, but there is much further to go.”