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International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds resigned on Friday in protest at Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to fund an increase in 5 billion £ spending, reducing the UK assistance budget.
“After all, these cuts will remove food and health care from desperate people – deeply damaging the UK reputation,” Dodds said in a letter to the prime minister.
Starmer on Tuesday announced an annual growth of £ 6 billion in military spending by 2027 and said it would be completely funded by reducing the £ 15.3 billion aid budget from 0.5 percent of gross national revenue to 0.3 percent.
The reduced assistance budget will be £ 9,2 billion, according to estimates from the Library of the Municipal House, but about half of this amount can end up spending domestically, including in the housing of asylum seekers.
The general manifestation of work elections last year promised to remove the aid costs at 0.7 percent “as soon as they allow for fiscal circumstances”.
Starmer’s announcement of defense expenses preceded his visit Thursday to meet US President Donald Trump, who called on Washington’s NATO partners to increase defense spending.
The Trump administration has also closed it all, but has closed the US Agency for International Development, the main channel for US aid and development programs worth $ 43 billion a year.
“I know you have been clear that you are not ideologically against international development,” Dodds wrote for Starmer. “But the reality is that this decision is already portrayed as follows in the course of President Trump’s cuttings in USAID.”
She added that it would be “impossible” to keep support for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, as well as vaccination programs and climate support, “given the depth of cuts.”
It is with sadness that I had to tender my resignation as Minister for International Development and for Women and Equations.
While I disagree with the ODA decision, I continue to support the government and its determination to give the change it needs to our country. Pic.twitter.com/44Scrx2p8z
– Annelies Dodds (@nannelies Depdeds) 28 February 2025
Before winning power last year, the Labor Party had denounced cuts to international aid made by the previous conservative government.
Dodds, who is to the left of the party, was the Chancellor of the Shadow in 2020 and led the criticism when the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak cut the expenses of aid Tory, violating the manifesto itself.
She was only told about Starmer’s plan to reduce the aid budget on Monday, Dodds confirmed in her letter. She added that she stopped resigning until the prime minister returned from Washington.
Starmer said in a letter in response to Dodds: “The decision I made to influence the Chamber was a difficult and painful decision and not the one I get easily.
“We will do whatever we can to return to a world where this is not the case and to rebuild a development skill,” he wrote. “However, protecting our national security should always be the first task of every government and I will always act in the best interest of the British people.”
The prime minister also pledged to continue to provide support in the worst areas of the Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan conflict.
Almost a third of the UK aid budget has already been spent to set up the internal asylum system.
During 2023, the last year available to the figures, 4.2 billion £ aid budget were spent domestically on refugees, almost entirely to cover the hotel costs for asylum seekers awaiting claims to be processed.
If those asylum costs remain the same, nearly half of the overseas aid budget will be used to finance the domestic asylum system in 2027. The government has said it wants to reduce asylum costs.
Starmer said that this week the increase in defense spending would receive the general military budget in the UK to 2.5 percent of GDP.
He added that in the other parliament, which is expected to last from 2029 to 2034, the United Kingdom would seek to hit a 3 percent GDP level.
In her letter, Dodds admitted that the Global Post -War Order has been “overthrown”, demanding higher defense costs, but said she had expected a collective discussion of fiscal rules of work and access to taxation.
“Even 3 percent can be the start only, and it will be impossible to raise the considerable resources needed only through tactical cuts for public spending,” Dodds wrote. “These are unprecedented periods, when strategic decisions for the sake of our country’s security cannot be needed.”
A work MP said they were “guts” by Dodds’s resignation: “Absolutely brave. She’s great, she has worked so hard, she never complained, she was regularly impossible and always loyal.”
Dodds was one of the several left -handed fronts, who were in the original Starmer’s Shadow cabinet, but were sidelined as the work leader moved the party further to the right.
It was moved in May 2021 from the shadowy chairman to the leader of the party and last July was given the roles of the government of both Development Minister and Minister of Women and Equality.
