Whose wealth would we be protecting?

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It is often repeated as though it were indisputable fact that the first duty of any government is the defence of the realm, or some other form of words meaning much the same thing. It’s used as a justification for ever-greater spending on weaponry, but it’s rarely challenged because the assumption is that we all accept it. But is it really true?

In seeking to increase the funding for weapons without breaking its own wholly arbitrary fiscal rule, the UK government has already targeted the ‘easy’ option of foreign aid, and there is increasing talk of targeting welfare payments and the pensions triple lock as well. There is, of course, nothing wrong with reducing the total spending on welfare payments if it is the result of getting more people into work, but cutting the payments first and assuming that that will ‘force’ people into work, even if suitable employment doesn’t exist, has repeatedly been shown not to work. It just makes people poorer, not to say increasing child poverty in the process. When it comes to pensions, the argument goes that not all pensioners ‘need’ the extra money guaranteed by the triple lock (or the winter fuel payment). Multi-millionaires do not ‘need’ extra millions either, but reducing the living standards of pensioners is, apparently, preferable to taxing the richest. There is, implicit in the argument, the idea that somehow the ‘needs’ of pensioners are less, or of less importance, than the needs of others, and that those in receipt of the state pension should be prepared to accept a lower standard of living as a result.

It seems to be true that some pensioners, at least, have been putting their hands up to say that they don’t mind a little bit of deprivation if it keeps us ‘safe’ from those horrid Russians, but I’m not sure how widespread that feeling is. Is it really the case that people who are struggling to fund both food and warmth would be happy to make themselves a little poorer to ‘deter’ the non-existent threat of an invasion which might leave them struggling to fund both warmth and food?

Assuming that someone (it doesn’t have to be Putin, although that’s the threat usually waved at us) really wants to take over the UK by violent means, what would be their objective? There are only two conceivable reasons: the first is to remove any threat that ‘we’ might want to attack ‘them’, and the second is to seize assets and wealth. And who owns those assets and that wealth? It certainly isn’t the pensioners and those on benefits, the ones who are being compelled to make a sacrifice to protect those assets. No, the wealth is owned by the wealthy – by definition. What those who want to pay for armaments out of reduced welfare and pensions are arguing, in effect, is that the many who own little should be prepared to make a sacrifice for the benefit of the few who own a great deal.

Maybe, instead of elevating ‘defence of the realm’ above all else, we should define the first duty of any government in terms of ensuring that all citizens have a good and improving standard of living, and can afford food, heating, and decent housing as a minimum. None of that will be achieved by diverting ever more funding into armaments, especially if that funding comes at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable.