And, with Mr Trump piling pressure on Nato countries to spend 5 per cent of their GDP on defence, the IFS said meeting the demand would cost an eye-watering £80 billion of extra spending.
Meanwhile, speaking to Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow, Sir Keir said the UK “has to do more for our defence and security”, adding that Mr Trump is right to call for Nato allies to boost their defence budgets.
Sir Keir Starmer is travelling to Washington this week armed with a plan to boost Britain’s defence spending, which he hopes will help the UK avoid any conflict with US president Donald Trump.
They added that a larger increase to 3 per cent, as defence chiefs have called for, would mean increasing the defence budget by £20 billion, almost half the sum raised by Rachel Reeves in her October Budget.
But the rush to hike Britain’s defence budget to 2.5 per cent of its GDP comes amid talks to end the war in Ukraine and UK plans to act as a peacekeeper in the country to deter future Russian aggression.
