Anneliese Dodds quits as international development minister over aid budget cut
Anneliese Dodds has quit as international development minister over the Government’s decision to cut overseas aid to fund a boost to defence spending.
Earlier this week, the Prime Minister announced that defence spending will be increasing to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, with a view to it hitting 3% in the next Parliament.
But to fund it, development assistance aid will be slashed from its current level of 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% in 2027.
Ms Dodds said she knew there were no “easy paths” to increase defence spending in her resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer, but that she disagreed with the decision for aid to “absorb the entire burden”.
She warned that the move would affect the UK’s support for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine and could lead to the UK being shut out of multilateral bodies.
“Sadness”
The Labour MP for Oxford East posted on X, formerly Twitter: “It is with sadness that I have had to tender my resignation as Minister for International Development and for Women and Equalities.
“While I disagree with the ODA (Overseas Development Assistance) decision, I continue to support the Government and its determination to deliver the change our country needs.”
She said in her letter to Sir Keir that she had waited to resign until after his trip to Washington to meet US President Donald Trump, who has been pressuring Europe to increase defence spending.
She wrote: “Undoubtedly, the post-war global order has come crashing down.
“I believe that we must increase spending on defence as a result; and know that there are no easy paths to doing so.
“I stood ready to work with you to deliver that increased spending, knowing some might well have had to come from ODA.”
She said she had expected there would also be discussions about reaching the spending target through looking at fiscal rules and taxation.
“Instead, the tactical decision was taken for ODA to absorb the entire burden,” she said.
Ms Dodds said Sir Keir had been clear that he was not “ideologically opposed” to international development.
“But the reality is that this decision is already being portrayed as following in President Trump’s slipstream of cuts to USAID.
“While we differ profoundly on this decision, I remain proud of all that you have achieved since I backed you to be leader of the Labour Party.”
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Described as soft left by the Guardian, guns or butter, a question she could answer, unlike her party of the damned…
More like soft in the head, adopting an unquestioning approach to dishing out loot to any old despot under the pretence of helping the poor and hungry. And all those 6 figure CEO’s of charities who like to get their snouts in the trough cos they is deservin’ see! How will they manage poor dabs ?
Please don’t creep up behind me like that…I thought it was Musk…
Nah, it’s your lucky day. Anyway if it was Musk you’d smell it a mile off !
The Fat Shanks Effect no 666; the ability to be comfortable with piling the bodies high…
After Johnson’s complete debasing of the political arena, the idea of a politician resigning on principle seems almost quaint.
It strikes me as a useful reminder of the idea that MPs are ‘Honourable Members’ except that so many are not. It also reminds me that a whole bunch of ‘Welsh’ MPs voted down the Bill to give Crown Estates back to Cymru. Are any of them facing a Recall Petition (Recall of MPs Act 2015)? If I was in one of those constituencies I would have launched such a petition.
UK’s only growth is in the numbers of its own population who are hungry, homeless, in poor housing and low paid jobs. A country that “boasts” that array of failings needs to get its head out of its ar*e and look far more rigorously at how it spends on foreign aid and defence. Sticking its nose into troubled countries is very admirable but leaving a chunk of its own people wallowing in the gutters of life is not a good look. Simple remedy – ditch the pet projects ( high and low value mostly out of control), tax high earners… Read more »
Cymru’s other growth industry is tree-felling and verge mowing…
Ever thought of going into politics hd ?
Politics ? You have a low opinion of me, bruvver! I just pass my time checking out the antics of political animals. Regardless of party or ideology most of them give off a nasty whiff of ego, prejudice, deceit, or greed. In the really bad cases it could be all four !
I do not Sir, you could be the Messiah, all our best people are asleep in a cave somewhere…
We must be very careful not to upset our political leaders, thin skins and delicate constitutions, why chose a job you are totally unsuited for (£125,000) !
Could do with the loot but the rest of it doesn’t appeal so I’ll pass on that one. Sleeping in a cave sounds O.K especially if it’s at the end of my days and a chance to mingle spiritually with top class spirits. I might feel a gush of humility.
Makes a change to see morals at play. We shall see how this pans out but aid cut is bad, and not increasing defence spending is bad.
Not sure this was a thought whenLabour first got in (apart from people that knew that trump is bought and paid for).
Glad I don’t have to balance the books.
I bet those south American criminals will be crying themselves to sleep at their loss of uk taxpayer funded poetry lessons, adios muchachos
I respect Ms Dodds’s decision; she appears to be committed to the importance of her former brief and I don’t fundamentally disagree with her. But given the predicament which the Starmer government currently faces, and in the light of some very specific commitments which the Labour party made to the electorate in advance of last July’s Westminster election, I can’t really see that they had much choice. They ruled out putting up the basic taxes which we all have to pay, and increased borrowing seems wholly implausible given how much the nation’s already forking out in debt interest to international… Read more »
How much are the Falklands worth?
Instead of reparations lets ask our former colonies to stump-up a disconnection fee…
Think outside the territorial waters of the UK…
There must be a few million quid down the back of every pink island…
I’m only joking, Mia Mottley, you and your kind of Labour are admired far and wide…
Odd comment, given that I’ll be 80 this coming summer, have voted in every single election since 1970 and have never once voted for a Labour candidate on any of those occasions.
Solidarity.
We can always find money for war but never peace!