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Eight reasons why we shouldn’t increase UK military spending

Image of F35-B lightning jets on the HMS Queen Elizabeth

The UK government is considering increasing its military budget in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It claims that the range of military threats now faced by Britain are greater than those it identified in a 2021 government review. Below are eight reasons why we think the UK’s military budget should …

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GCOMS on Warrior Nation Podcast

Warrior Nation Podcast logo

We were pleased to be asked to discuss the work of GCOMS UK on the Warrior Nation Podcast, produced by ForcesWatch one of our newest UK supporting organisations. As the sentiment goes, there always seems to be money for warfare but never quite enough for welfare. So what’s the picture in the UK – that …

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GCOMS Budget Briefing on the Autumn Statement

31/10/2022. London, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets with the Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt to discuss the upcoming fiscal event in the Cabinet Room in 10 Downing Street. Picture by Simon Walker / No 10 Downing Street

This short briefing examines UK government spending presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, in his Autumn Statement 2022 (AS-22). Summary Probably the main story of AS-22 – in terms of military spending – is that there isn’t actually a great deal to report. Despite the bluster of the Truss government’s promise to …

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GCOMS UK AGM & Budget Briefing

As we approach the third budget statement in as many months on the 17th of November, public spending cuts are again on the agenda. Yet even after the biggest increases in military spending in a generation during this Parliament, the UK Defence Minister is discussing a further £52bn increase in the midst of a desperate …

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New Report: ‘NATO, building global insecurity’

New publication by Centre Delàs of Peace Studies, in collaboration with IPB and GCOMS, providing a critical analysis of NATO’s role in the construction of a global scale warmongering security, and including historical, gender & climate justice perspectives. #NATOsquareOne A few days before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Madrid (June 29 and …

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$2 Trillion for War Versus $100 Billion to Save the Planet

The West seems more fixated on spending social wealth on the military rather than addressing the climate catastrophe. During late April and early May, South Asia experienced the terrible impacts of global warming. Temperatures reached almost 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in some cities in the region. These high temperatures came alongside dangerous flooding in …

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New report reveals UK spent $6.8bn on nuclear weapons in 2021

A new report, ‘Squandered: 2021 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending,’ by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) shows that in 2021, the year before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nine nuclear-armed states spent $82.4 billion on their nuclear weapons, a further increase on 2020 spending. The report shows that it is not just governments …

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