'Get serious!' Starmer told to choose between spiralling benefits and keeping Britain safe as Labour ex-Nato chief brands the PM 'complacent'

Keir Starmer faces charges of leaving Britain 'unsafe' today as a former Nato chief and Labour minister condemns his 'corrosive complacency'.

Lord Robertson will use a speech later to accuse the PM of failing to act with the country 'under attack', insisting the Iran war should be a 'rude wake-up call'.

In a devastating assessment, he will warn the Government is prioritising 'the ever-expanding welfare budget' over essential security. 

The peer - who helped write Labour's Strategic Defence Review last year - has been backed by military chiefs who said the UK could no longer rely on the 'US cavalry coming to bail us out'. 

They insisted America was right to ridicule the 'big bad' Royal Navy as it was 'too small' to be effective.  

Kemi Badenoch warned that Sir Keir cannot be 'trusted' to protect Brits, calling for the two-child benefit cap to be restored and funds moved from Net Zero projects.   

Lord Robertson was a defence secretary under Tony Blair from May 1997 until October 1999. He then became a Nato secretary general until 2004. 

He also helped write Labour's Strategic Defence Review last year, and will use a lecture today in Salisbury to accuse 'non-military experts in the Treasury' of 'vandalism' in prioritising benefits over defence. 

He will say: 'We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.'

And he is expected to identify a 'corrosive complacency in Britain's political leadership' and say 'lip service is paid to the risks, the threats, the red signals of danger – but even a promised national conversation about defence can't be started'.

With Labour still to publish its long-awaited Defence Investment Plan, the peer will accuse Sir Keir of being unwilling 'to make the necessary investment' – something the Daily Mail has highlighted in its Don't Leave Britain Defenceless campaign. 

He will add: 'We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe... Britain's national security and safety is in peril.'

Lord Robertson was a defence secretary under Tony Blair from May 1997 until October 1999. Here he is (pictured left) with the current defence secretary John Healey (right)

Sir Keir Starmer has a 'corrosive complacency' over the British military, Lord Robertson will say in a lecture in Salisbury on Tuesday

Lord Robertson's intervention comes after Vladimir Putin last week sent a Russian warship to escort two of his shadow fleet vessels through the English Channel. 

Sir Keir had previously trumpeted plans to seize sanctioned Russian vessels in British waters.

But the peer is expected to pour scorn on Chancellor Rachel Reeves for using 'a mere 40 words on defence in over an hour' in her Budget speech last year, while last month in her Spring Statement 'she used none'.

And Lord Robertson will cite the UK's inability to deploy more than one Royal Navy warship to the Mediterranean within the first fortnight of the Iran war as an example of the 'parlous state' of our current defences.

He will also warn that the UK faces 'crises in logistics, engineering, cyber, ammunition, training and medical resources'.

General Sir Richard Barrons - another author of the SDR - agreed with Lord Robertson that 'there's an enormous gap between where we have to be to keep the country safe in the world we now live in and where we actually are'.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the future will involve 'a European Nato doing much more and the US doing much less', and the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force were 'too small and too undernourished'.

'The US cavalry is not coming to bail us out now,' he added.

Sir Richard said when US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth mocked the 'big bad' Royal Navy he 'could not argue'.

'Like many others I hung my head in sorrow. But I couldn't argue with him because although the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force and the army are, in their bones, outstanding institutions, they are simply too small and too undernourished to deal with the world that we we now live in. And the review says this,' he said. 

Kemi Badenoch has accused Sir Keir of posturing on the world stage over the Middle East war while failing to rearm the nation.

She said she 'completely agrees' with Lord Robertson.

'It was exactly what I told Starmer in Parliament yesterday and said in my speech to defence experts at the weekend. 

'We need to get serious. The Conservatives would restore the two child benefit cap and repurpose funds from Net Zero projects to invest in our military. 

'Meanwhile the government have NO plan and, as Lord Robertson points out, Rachel Reeves had only 40 words on defence in her Budget and none in the Spring Statement. You can't trust Labour on defence.' 

A Government spokesman said last night: 'We are delivering on the Strategic Defence Review to meet the threats we face.'