Starmer defends aid cuts but praises Annaliese Dodds after resignation – UK politics live | Politics

Downing Street has released the text of Keir Starmer’s response to Anneliese Dodds’ resignation letter. He defends the decision to cut aid spending, saying “protecting our national security must always be the first duty of any government”, but praises her work as a minister. “I know you will have more to contribute in the future,” he says, implying a return to government could be possible.

Keir Starmer is preparing to discuss how to guarantee a peace deal in Ukraine will last when he meets Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Downing Street this weekend, PA Media reports. PA says:

Leaders from across Europe will gather in London on Sunday, following a week which will have seen Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and the Ukrainian president travel for talks with US president Donald Trump.

Ahead of Sunday’s summit focused on security, the prime minister will meet with Zelenskyy separately.

Starmer returned to the UK today following a trip to the White House which went as well as No 10 could have hoped, with Trump clearly pleased with the king’s invitation for an unprecedented second state visit, giving an indication that he would not block the Chagos Islands deal and suggesting a trade deal could spare British exports from US tariffs.

As well as the meeting with Zelenskyy, Sunday will see the prime minister meet separately with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and chair a call with the Baltic countries – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – before hosting the summit.

Zelenskyy, Macron and Meloni have been invited to the summit along with leaders from Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Turkey, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Romania, as well as the Nato secretary general and the presidents of the European Commission and European Council.

They will discuss the next steps in planning for security guarantees if a Ukraine peace deal is reached – something Starmer believes will have to involve the US.

The leaders will consider how to strengthen Ukraine’s current position, with military support and increased economic pressure on Russia.

The UK wants US military assets to provide surveillance, intelligence and – potentially – warplanes providing air cover to deter Vladimir Putin from launching another bid to conquer his neighbour.

The SNP is calling for a Commons vote on the aid cuts announced by Keir Starmer on Tuesday to fund higher defence spending. In a statement issued after Anneliese Dodds’ resignation, Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, said:

Keir Starmer’s wreckless plans to slash UK international aid are strategically damaging, immoral and yet another broken Labour Party manifesto pledge.

MPs must be given a vote for such a drastic and harmful step, which rips up decades of vital work, will plunge some of the world’s poorest people further into desperation and may cost lives.

The Labour MP Clive Lewis told Radio 4’s World at One that Anneliese Dodds was someone who “doesn’t like to rock the boat” and who would not have resigned lightly. And he suggested that other factors, like the government’s general “direction of travel”, might have influenced her decision. He said:

I get the impression from reading her resignation letter that there this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, a rather big straw, but nonetheless it’s one of a series of decisions that have been taken.

The direction of travel of our own government has left not just MPs uneasy, but lots of our voter base, and I think it’s something that the prime minister and the cabinet would do well to reflect on.

Although Dodds was appointed as Keir Starmer’s first shadow chancellor, and served in that post for about a year, she is more leftwing than he is. Some of Starmer’s supporters wanted him to appointed Rachel Reeves in 2020, but she was deemed unacceptable to the left, and to key trade unions, and that is partly why Dodds got the job instead.

Lewis also said he thought it was significant that Dodds, in her resignation letter (see 12.29pm), suggested that Labour should reconsider its fiscal rules and its pledges on tax. He said:

I don’t think I got elected … to cut support to the poorest, whether it’s in this country or overseas. And I think what she’s saying is we need to have a conversation, the world is changing, and when it comes to defence, if we want to go beyond 2.4, 2.5%, maybe 3%, maybe beyond, that’s going to require a real conversation about the fiscal rules that we have, about borrowing and about who’s being taxed.

You have probably noted that 138 aid agencies have written in saying we should be looking at wealth taxes. Well, that’s something lots of Labour MPs, lots of the public, think should be happening.

Lewis said the UK was good at taxing income, but not wealth. That would have to change, said.

We tax income extremely well. We don’t tax wealth anywhere near as much. And this is the conversation this government is going to have to have, because whether it comes to public spending domestically or internationally, or on defence, or investment into net zero and all the other things that we now want to do in terms of industrial manufacturing and supply chains, we need to have that resource.

Lewis was referring to this letter signed by 138 leaders of in the aid sector. It says:

We urgently call on this government to make a statement to parliament, outlining whether the impact of these cuts has been thought through and whether alternative sources of funding were explored before deciding to remove support to those who need it the most. A wealth tax of just 2% on wealth above £10m (affecting just 0.04% of the population) would raise £24bn annually. It is unacceptable that taxing extreme wealth was not looked at before cutting UK aid.

A wealth tax on assets above the value of £10m was Green party policy at the last election.

The Liberal Democrats says the government’s cuts to the aid buget are “unsustainable”. In a comment on Anneliese Dodds’ resignation, Monica Harding, the Lib Dem international affairs spokesperson, said:

Anneliese Dodds has done the right thing. The government’s position on the international aid cut is unsustainable.

Increasing defence spending to 2.5% is the right thing to do as the global threats we face intensify. But doing so by cutting the international aid budget is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. The government hasn’t even carried out an impact assessment.

Diplomacy, development and defence are not competing priorities – they are complementary. Where we withdraw our aid, it’s Russia and China who will fill the vacuum.

The news coverage of Keir Starmer’s visit to the White House yesterday is overwhelmingly positive. But in the comment pages, the verdict is a lot more nuanced. Here are extracts from five articles on the visit that are worth a read.

Stephen Bush in the Financial Times says the postive aspects of the trip don’t alter the fundamental difficulties.

You can see the outlines of something that works for all concerned, in policy terms: the UK government continues to buy technology that it thinks is top-of-the-range, it signs some sort of deal trumpeting that, and it avoids tariffs — trebles all round in Downing Street and the Foreign Office.

But: the big picture political thing that the UK government and essentially all of Europe wants is some sign that the combined Macron-Starmer charm offensive might do anything to pull Trump and the US back into the defence of Europe. That didn’t happen. I don’t think anyone reasonably expected that mission to succeed (there is a reason why Starmer already has another appointment in his diplomatic calendar to meet fellow European leaders) but nevertheless, this remains the single biggest problem facing the UK and its neighbours.

In addition, the long-term politics of all this look very fraught. Labour’s liberal base is essentially being asked to stomach: a) a rhetorically warm relationship with a president it hates b) slow, and in some policy areas, non-existent progress on domestic social policy c) cuts to the overseas development budget to finance increases in defence spending.

Freddie Hayward at the New Statesman says the real story from the trip is about Britain’s weakness.

Before No 10 commission a triumphal arch on the Mall, remember the Prime Minister was there to get a security guarantee for Ukraine. What happened? As expected, Trump dismissed the idea of even providing air cover, and instead said the presence of American workers, presumably mining Ukraine’s rare earths, will deter any “playing around”. Trump does not want American troops in danger on Europe’s eastern flank …

The real story of Starmer’s trip was, therefore, British weakness. Look at what was done, not what was said. Flattery occluded the material realities; diplomatic procedure papered over uncouth power imbalances. Those taken in by the sweet words Trump offered to the Prime Minister in the Oval Office should remember that the US president once wrote love letters to Kim Jong Un; that for the first time since 1945 the US voted with Russia, North Korea and Belarus at the UN last week; and that JD Vance has said attacks on free speech in the UK meant the US was questioning whether it was even worth protecting its allies.

David Blair in the Telegraph says three words from Trump made the trip a success.

With three vital words, Donald Trump made Sir Keir Starmer’s visit to the White House a success.

“I support it,” said the president, when asked whether he backed Article V of the Nato treaty, which binds the US and every other member to come to the defence of any ally.

Barely a fortnight after Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, sent tremors through Europe by appearing to suggest that America’s commitment to Nato was conditional and wavering, Mr Trump offered reassurance …

At one point, Mr Trump turned to Sir Keir and asked, half jokingly, whether Britain could take on Russia alone.

Despite the warm words, the message was clear: never forget your dependence on America.

But Ian Dunt in a post on his Substack blog draws the opposite conclusion, and argues that what Trump said showed Nato is not safe.

Keir Starmer’s visit to the White House yesterday was generally well received. The British right were thwarted in their clear desire to see Donald Trump publicly humiliate him. There was a fairly warm reception to the Chagos deal and some mention of avoiding tariffs. That all secured some rare front page praise today, with the Mail saying “what an unlikely bromance”, the Telegraph saying “Trump backs Starmer on Chagos” and the Times emphasising a possible trade deal. The PM’s team will consider that a good day at work. Britain is managing to hide in the undergrowth while this demented gorilla goes on the warpath.

Unfortunately, none of it means anything. The one supreme matter of historic importance at the moment concerns American security guarantees for Ukraine. Without them, there is no Nato. Without them, there is a significantly increased incentive for Russia to continue a policy of imperial expansionism. Without them, we inch closer and closer to European powers entering into direct military conflict with Russia.

But on this point Starmer failed to secure any meaningful assurance at all, just like Emmanuel Macron earlier in the week. You can’t fault either man. They did their best. But the basic truth is that they came back empty handed. “Could you take on Russia by yourselves?” Trump asked Starmer yesterday, a vicious reptilian smile plastered across his face. And in that joke, and the laughter that surrounded it, was the death of Nato, the end of any meaningful US commitment to Europe, the rejection of a united West, a once-great power turned into a small dog that bares its stomach to Russian tyranny.

Gaby Hinsliff in the Guardian says this is no longer a “special relationship”.

Starmer laid on the flattery with the recommended trowel, handing over an invitation from King Charles for an unprecedented second state visit that evidently delighted the president. But though Trump praised him as a ‘special man’, this no longer feels like a special relationship; more the kind of loveless transaction that leaves both sides feeling grubby.

As Patrick Wintour, Rowena Mason and Peter Walker report, the cuts to the aid budget announced on Tueday, that triggered Anneliese Dodds’ resignation, will take UK development spending to its lowest level as a percentage of national income since records began, an analysis says.

Here is a profile of Anneliese Dodds by Kiran Stacey.