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Britain to Build Billion-Pound Weapons Works as Starmer Calls for War Readiness

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference, following a deal on the Chagos Islands, at a military headquarters in London, Britain May 22, 2025. Thomas Krych/Pool via REUTERS
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference, following a deal on the Chagos Islands, at a military headquarters in London, Britain May 22, 2025. Thomas Krych/Pool via REUTERS
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Britain to Build Billion-Pound Weapons Works as Starmer Calls for War Readiness

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference, following a deal on the Chagos Islands, at a military headquarters in London, Britain May 22, 2025. Thomas Krych/Pool via REUTERS
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference, following a deal on the Chagos Islands, at a military headquarters in London, Britain May 22, 2025. Thomas Krych/Pool via REUTERS

Britain must be ready to fight and win a war against states with advanced military forces, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said as his government announced a 1.5 billion-pound ($2.0 billion) plan to build at least six new weapons and explosives factories.
Starmer's warning came a day before he publishes a major review of Britain's military capabilities. The UK and countries across Europe are rapidly trying to boost their defense industries after US President Donald Trump said the continent had to take more responsibility for its own security.
"We are being directly threatened by states with advanced military forces, so we must be ready to fight and win," Starmer wrote in an article for The Sun on Sunday newspaper, citing as examples Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its co-operation with Iran and North Korea.
Defense Minister John Healey announced the munitions investment program in a BBC interview on Sunday, describing it as "a message to Moscow" as well as a way to stimulate the country's sluggish economy.
The Ministry of Defense said it would procure up to 7,000 long-range weapons, built in Britain. The extra investment means Britain will spend around 6 billion pounds on munitions in the current parliament, the MoD said.
The Sunday Times reported the government wanted to purchase US-made fighter jets capable of firing tactical nuclear weapons. The MoD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
The Strategic Defense Review, commissioned by Starmer's Labor government shortly after it won power last July, will set out the threats Britain faces and the military equipment and services needed to meet them.
Starmer has already committed to raise defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and target a 3% level over the longer term.
The government has already announced a billion-pound plan to invest in Artificial Intelligence that can be used to enhance battlefield decision-making, and has separately committed to spend an extra 1.5 billion pounds to tackle the poor state of housing for the country's armed forces.

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Iran Rejects Return to Negotiations Unless Other Side Ready for ‘Fair Deal’

A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service shows Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (not pictured) on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Foreign Ministers meeting in Tianjin, China, 15 July 2025. EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE / HANDOUT
A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service shows Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (not pictured) on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Foreign Ministers meeting in Tianjin, China, 15 July 2025. EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE / HANDOUT
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Iran Rejects Return to Negotiations Unless Other Side Ready for ‘Fair Deal’

A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service shows Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (not pictured) on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Foreign Ministers meeting in Tianjin, China, 15 July 2025. EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE / HANDOUT
A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service shows Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (not pictured) on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Foreign Ministers meeting in Tianjin, China, 15 July 2025. EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE / HANDOUT

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told his European counterparts Friday they have no grounds for reactivating UN sanctions after they threatened to do so in the coming months unless there is progress in nuclear talks.

“If EU/E3 (Germany, France and the UK) want to have a role, they should act responsibly and put aside the worn-out policies of threat and pressure, including the 'snapback' for which they [have] absolutely no moral [or] legal grounds,” Araghchi said on X.

On Friday, the Iranian FM had a joint teleconference with E3 foreign ministers and EU representatives for political affairs.

Araghchi said he told the EU and E3 officials that it was the US that withdrew from the two-year negotiated deal - coordinated by EU in 2015- not Iran.

“And it was US that left the negotiation table in June this year and chose a military option instead, not Iran,” he wrote on X.

“Any new round of talks is only possible when the other side is ready for a fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial nuclear deal,” the FM added.

In Tehran, calls have been growing to deter any move by the E3 aimed at activating the “snapback” mechanism that reimposes UN sanctions on Tehran under the nuclear deal.

France, Britain and Germany told Iran on Thursday that they would restore UN sanctions unless it reopened talks on its nuclear program immediately and produced concrete results by the end of August.

A French diplomatic source told Reuters that the ministers had urged Iran to resume diplomacy immediately to reach a “verifiable and lasting” deal, threatening to use the so-called 'snapback' mechanism if it failed to do so.

The three European countries, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to a 2015 deal - from which the US withdrew in 2018 - that lifted sanctions on Iran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.

If Iran is found to be in violation of the terms, the “snapback” can be used to restore UN sanctions before the UN Security Council resolution enshrining the deal expires on October 18. The process would take about 30 days.

“The ministers also reiterated their determination to use the so-called 'snapback' mechanism in the absence of concrete progress toward such an agreement by the end of the summer,” the French diplomatic source said, without specifying what this would entail.

Since the airstrikes, inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, have left Iran. While Tehran has suggested it is open to diplomacy, there are no indications a sixth round of talks with Washington will resume soon.

Even if they do, diplomats say reaching a comprehensive accord before the end of August - the deadline the Europeans have given - seems unrealistic, especially without inspectors on the ground.

Two European diplomats said they hoped to coordinate strategy with Washington in the coming days with a view to restarting talks with Iran.