Greens plan to spend more on foreign aid than on defence in what rivals brand 'complete fantasy'

Alice Tomlinson
Thu, 16 Apr 2026 18:08:46 +0000

The Green Party are planning to spend more on foreign aid than on defence in what rivals have branded as a "complete fantasy".

It has set out plans to spend more on foreign aid and climate finance than Britain currently spends on defending itself, drawing criticism from other parties amid warnings the UK is already dangerously underprepared for war.

A policy document has revealed the Greens would commit 2.5 per cent of national income to overseas development assistance and climate finance combined by 2030, a figure that exceeds the UK's current defence budget, the Daily Mail reports.

The breakdown would see one per cent of national income allocated to overseas development assistance and a further 1.5 per cent to climate finance, intended to help developing nations cut their emissions and adapt to the impact of climate change.

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Last year, the Government cut the UK's overseas development assistance budget to 0.3 per cent of national income in order to increase military spending to 2.5 per cent by 2027.

The Green Party's policy document frames the spending as a moral obligation, arguing that overseas aid and climate finance need to provide for what it describes as "planet repairs".

This covers climate debt and reparations for centuries of colonial exploitation, enslavement and trafficking.

The document adds that colonialism and the fossil fuel era have impacted the global economy in ways that harm countries in the developing world and that Britain has a responsibility to make amends for this legacy.

Zack Polanski’s party would also require all foreign aid be given to poorer nations as grants rather than loans, meaning the UK would have no expectation of seeing the money returned.

They would further seek to write off all international debt held by the world's least developed countries and call on the British Government to take a "strong international lead" in persuading other wealthy nations to do the same.

Mr Polanski has also backed an alternative defence review focused not on conventional military threats but on what he described as "emerging threats" including cybersecurity, pandemic resilience and the climate crisis.

He said the first priority of any defence review should be the UK's vulnerability to climate change, saying the Government needed to look "much more holistically at other emerging threats".

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The Green party leader also questioned the value of defining defence spending as a percentage of national income at all.

He suggested the right approach was to first establish what needed to be spent money on before deciding the total figure.

However, he has not yet consulted defence officials on such proposals.

The plans have been met with criticism from the Conservatives, with Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel branding them a "complete fantasy".

She said: "At a time of global conflict twinned with pressure on the public finances, it's ludicrous that the Greens are prioritising foreign aid over defence spending.

"The first duty of any Government is to keep the public safe - the British public, not foreign publics."

The intervention comes as Lord George Robertson, former Nato secretary general and author of the Government's Strategic Defence Review, said this week that Britain was "underprepared", "underinsured" and "under attack".

Lord Robertson also referenced the "ever-expanding welfare budget" as a reason why we cannot "defend Britain".

A Green Party spokesman said: "Our International Policy chapter was last amended in October 2025.

"However, Greens have made numerous interventions on international issues in recent months.

"For example, Green MPs and peers wrote to Keir Starmer demanding answers to a series of questions and an end to British involvement in the illegal US/Israeli war on Iran.

"There's a difference between documents outlining broad values and priorities, and interventions on rapidly evolving situations."