Manufacturing Consent
The announcement was made with little fanfare, as though it were merely another economic development scheme. Six new weapons and energetics factories. £1.5bn in public money. A promise of 1,800 jobs. A new phase in British defence policy. According to Defence Secretary John Healey, this was about “deterring our adversaries”. According to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, it was proof that “a strong economy needs a strong national defence”. According to the government’s new strategic defence review, it is a direct response to Russia and a lesson drawn from Ukraine.
But what if it’s something else? What if this is less a matter of national defence and more a consolidation of the military-industrial consensus now dominating Britain’s political centre? Behind the language of readiness and resilience is the quiet retooling of Britain’s economy around perpetual conflict. Starmer calls it realism. I would argue that it’s not defence, it’s deference to capital, to the arms manufacturers.
“The defence industry will become an engine for economic growth.” — John Healey. (They said the same thing about North Sea oil. And fracking. And selling Typhoon jets to the Saudis!)
War as Growth Strategy
Rachel Reeves wants us to believe that economic strength and military strength go hand-in-hand. She doesn’t mean it metaphorically. Labour’s entire economic strategy now leans on supply-side militarism: high-tech weapons, defence procurement, and the supply chains of war.
This is classic military Keynesianism: state stimulus via armaments. Not social housing, not hospitals, not retrofitting Britain’s damp-ridden, energy inefficient housing stock. Missiles. Labour is committing to spend £6bn on UK munitions during this parliament. The war in Ukraine may have accelerated it, but the logic predates Putin. Britain’s economy has stagnated. Industrial policy has collapsed. The arms sector fills the gap.
For the dominant class, this is ideal. No need to redistribute wealth, reform taxation, or confront fossil capital. Just pump money into the defence sector and call it national security. Everyone from BAE to Raytheon gets a seat at the table. In this economy, any economy, peace is bad for business.
Austerity for schools, hospitals, and housing. But there’s always money for missiles.
Always-On War Economy
The phrase “always-on” sounds innocuous, like a broadband plan. But what it really means is a permanent war footing. The idea, drawn from NATO doctrine, is that stockpiles must be maintained at all times, in case of sudden escalation. It’s a shift from deterrence to readiness. Not preparing for the worst, but expecting it.
In practical terms, it means industrial planning structured around weapons, not welfare. In political terms, it signals a reorientation of the state. The enemy might be Putin, but the casualties are democratic priorities. As long as there’s an “immediate and pressing” threat, there’s justification for sidelining dissent, postponing reform, and shielding defence contracts from scrutiny.
It is not a coincidence that the same review pledging billions for arms also promises to fix military housing. Not social housing. Not council homes. Just barracks. Just soldiers. The state will intervene when it serves the security state, but not when it serves the working class.
Fewer soldiers, more missiles. This isn’t defence. It’s spectacle.
Starmerism and the Security State
This is Labour’s project now: not redistribution but rearmament. Not class struggle, but military consensus. Starmer wants to present himself as serious, modern, competent. The old New Labour trick. But in 2025, competence means accepting that war is permanent and defence spending is sacred.
The facts speak louder than spin. The British Army is at its smallest size since the Napoleonic era. The number of full-time trained soldiers fell again this year. And yet we are building factories to produce thousands of long-range weapons. The contradiction doesn’t seem to bother Starmer. Defence is no longer about soldiers, or even strategy. It is about signalling. You don’t need boots on the ground when you’ve got shares in the supply chain.
This is not a break with the Tories. It is their logic made efficient. The defence review, authored by George Robertson, Fiona Hill, and Richard Barrons, is not a democratic document. It is elite consensus in print. It does not ask whether Britain should be a war economy. It assumes it.
The Global Context
No one should romanticise Russia or downplay the atrocities in Ukraine. But we should ask what kind of global system Britain is signing up to. NATO expansion, a revived Cold War logic, and now a European arms race. We are not heading towards peace. We are preparing for permanent escalation.
Britain cannot outgun the US. It cannot deter nuclear powers alone. But it can entrench itself as a reliable junior partner. A supplier, a builder, a loyal subcontractor in the global defence economy. Starmer’s strategy is to make Britain matter not through diplomacy or development, but through weapons production.
Build Something Better
It would be a mistake to dismiss this as just another policy paper. This is a transformation. Six factories. Billions in spending. Jobs and infrastructure redirected towards warfare, not welfare. The war economy is no longer an emergency measure. It is the plan.
We could build homes. We could fix the NHS. We could green the grid, retrofit buildings, pay teachers properly. But that would take redistribution. Conflict is easier. War doesn’t just enrich the arms dealers. It disciplines the population. It silences dissent. It tells us we must wait. That there are more urgent things than poverty, climate collapse, or corporate greed.
The weapons may be British-built, but the war they prepare us for won’t be ours to win.
Artificial Intelligence (9) Book Review (78) Books (82) Britain (35) Capitalism (9) Conservative Government (35) Creeping Fascism (12) diary (11) Donald J Trump (45) Elon Musk (9) Europe (11) Film (11) France (14) History (9) Imperialism (16) Iran (10) Israel (14) Keir Starmer (10) Labour Government (25) Labour Party (9) Marxist Theory (10) Migrants (13) Nigel Farage (13) Palestine (9) Protest (14) Reform UK (21) Russia (12) Suella Braverman (8) Television (9) Trade Unionism (8) Ukraine (9) United States of America (85) War (19) Work (9) Working Class (9)
Leave a Reply