Britain’s defence policy is more like one big declaration of war | Owen Jones

Prevailing political wisdom would suggest this offers necessary distance from his predecessor, though it should be noted that Labour’s 2017 and 2019 manifestos both promised to retain Trident and keep defence spending to at least 2%, the target Nato members are committed to reach.

The UK intelligence services warned that “the threat from al-Qaida” and “other Islamist terrorist groups” would increase if Iraq was invaded, while we know the war in Libya played a pivotal role in radicalising the Manchester Arena bombings.

Israel’s war in Gaza, framed by the UN as potential genocide, will surely prove one of the greatest mass radicalisation events of our age, and British complicity will expose us to the lethal consequences.

As Richard Reeve, coordinator of the thinktank Rethinking Security, puts it, other “middle powers” – think Japan, Germany, Italy, Canada – don’t have global military pretensions.

Indeed, the sector offers rich rewards to asset managers and investment firms such as BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, but if prosperity for local communities is what you want, then why is Barrow-in-Furness – where Britain’s nuclear submarines are built – so afflicted with poverty?

Helping to stoke an arms race, and resigning ourselves to a future global conflagration, will hardly prove an effective means to protect our national security if it culminates in nuclear extermination.