Britain must stop relying on the United States for defence, the Armed Forces minister has said.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Al Carns said Britain had been dependent on US security guarantees “for the last 60 years”.
But, warning that Donald Trump’s White House may pivot away from Europe to focus on other threats, Mr Carns said Nato countries must spend more on defence to “increase our lethality”.
His comment came as Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary-general, issued a stark warning on Thursday, saying Vladimir Putin had chosen the alliance as his “next target” and the West must be prepared for a war on a scale not seen since the days of “our grandparents and great-grandparents”.
Earlier this week, Mr Trump, the US president, condemned European leaders as “weak” for failing to end the war in Ukraine, and the new US national security strategy claimed Europe faced “civilisational erasure” if it did not cut migration.
Mr Carns told The Telegraph he disagreed “wholeheartedly” with the US warning on migration but said it was a “clear message” that Europe needed to “collectively acknowledge and own a large proportion of its own security”.
