UK ‘under daily attack’ from Russia and country needs to ‘wake up’ to threats, Starmer’s military adviser warns

Sir Keir Starmer’s military advisers have warned that Britain is “under daily attack” from Russia and must wake up to the threat after “extremely dangerous” defense spending delays.

Lord Robertson and Sir Richard Barrons, two of Sir Keir’s authors of the strategic defense review, sounded the alarm while giving evidence to MPs on the defense select committee.

Sir Keir is expected to come under pressure from Donald Trump to make greater commitments on defense at the NATO summit, which starts in Ankara on Tuesday.

The long-awaited defense investment plan was finally published last week after a year’s delay, but it leaves a multi-billion pound black hole in spending that the next Prime Minister will have to fill.

Lord Robertson told MPs: “There is a degree of complacency in the country generally and I think that is very, very dangerous and people need to be woken up. My concern is that this is not coming from the top, so when I asked the chief of defense staff why we were not letting the public know what the threats were, his response was ‘We don’t want to alarm people’.”

He added: “I think we need to put people on alert because we’re under attack every day now and it’s only going to get worse.”

He added that Russia sees Britain as its “arch-enemy at the moment”.

He also revealed he wanted a meeting with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in December to discuss defence, and was still waiting.

Appearing before the same committee, Sir Richard said: “For me, by far the most dangerous consequence of this year’s delay is that the prime minister said Russia could attack NATO by 2030.

“And we’ve actually lost a year of taking action on this, and that’s extremely dangerous.”

Lord Robertson also predicted that “relations could get pretty chilly” if Sir Keir sits next to President Trump at Wednesday’s NATO meeting.

He said America and other allies were “appalled” by delays in Britain’s defense spending.

Previously, Kemi Badenoch said the government should stop worrying about Donald Trump’s “hurtful words” and instead focus on funding defence.

“I think we need to get our act together and stop complaining about how President Trump talks about us and his hurtful words,” she said.

“Of course, I would have preferred him to have made these comments privately, but the priority right now should be finding funding, not complaining about criticism.”

He also said Mr Trump’s public criticism was nothing new, adding: “The underfunding of NATO, or more specifically the underfunding of NATO defense spending, is something American presidents have said over and over again over the years.

“What makes Donald Trump unique is the way he says it, but the points he makes are not new.

“I think one of the reasons why countries like Germany have increased their spending to 3.7 percent is their aggression in this regard, while Poland is spending around 4.8 percent. As far as I can see, they have made these increases in the last two years.

“What have we done during this time? We are paying for your well-being.”

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