Starmer Unveils £37bn Twelve-Nation Missile Programme
Twelve countries led by Britain will spend more than £37bn over ten years on the Deep Precision Strike programme — a European missile with a range of around 200 miles, potentially extending to 1,250 — announced as Sir Keir Starmer convenes allies at his final NATO summit. “We must step up to deliver a stronger, more European NATO,” he said. Yvette Cooper, in Ankara: “We are sending a clear message to President Putin; NATO is stronger, more European and ready to defend our citizens.”
The programme is Europe’s structural answer to the American drawdown — deep-strike capability has been a US monopoly within the alliance, and building a European one is a decade-long admission that the umbrella is narrowing; the missiles will not be ready until the 2030s. For Starmer it is a legacy announcement made on borrowed authority, thirteen days from handover, and it does not answer the criticism that dogged him into the summit: no plan to reach 3.5% of GDP by 2035, with government figures showing NATO jets scrambled more than 700 times for Russian aircraft. Watch the communiqué’s spending language today, and whether Burnham owns or reopens the commitment.