Lord George Robertson, the former NATO secretary general who led the UK’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), warned Tuesday that Britain’s national security is “in peril,” as a funding deadlock between the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence leaves the country’s 10-year Defence Investment Plan (DIP) unpublished for more than six months past its expected release.
Robertson, speaking in Salisbury, accused “non-military experts in the Treasury” of “vandalism” and said Prime Minister Keir Starmer was “not willing to make the necessary investment.” He said Defence Secretary John Healey was “extremely angry” about his public intervention. “I believe my country is in danger,” Robertson said.
The DIP standoff carries direct industry costs.
The UK SDR was meant to be published this week. Unfortunately, its has been rejected for the umpteenth time by the Government, presumably with Treasury input.
My sources tell me that George Robertson, Richard Barrons, and Fiona Hill have between them produced an outstanding…
— Nicholas Drummond (@nicholadrummond) May 22, 2025
Skycutter, a UK drone company that ranked first in Pentagon trials, is exploring a US base because British contract awards have not materialised.
A British company called Skycutter, based in the East Midlands, just finished first out of the entire field in the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance Program. Score of 99.3 out of 100. The largest order goes to them: two and a half thousand units, an initial Pentagon contract of twenty…
— Maxi (@AllForProgress_) April 9, 2026
4GD founder Rob Taylor said the domestic market is in “hiatus” and is also weighing a move to the US.
Fiona Hill, a former US National Security Council director and SDR co-author, said the lack of urgency was “bizarre.” “Companies that are British, that have really important armaments and other equipment, are not getting the orders and so they are looking elsewhere and some are folding,” Hill told The Guardian.
Retired General Sir Richard Barrons, the third SDR co-author, told the BBC the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force were “undernourished” and that “the US cavalry is not coming to bail us out now.” He said reaching full war readiness would take the UK a decade, a span that exceeds the three-to-five-year window allied intelligence attributes to Russia.
A government spokesperson said the government was investing “over £270 billion” in defence across the Parliament, calling it the “largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War.”
For firms like Skycutter, the continued silence on the DIP’s publication date may be the final signal needed to look across the Atlantic.
