UK’s international development minister quits after foreign aid cut

The British minister responsible for international development quit Friday in the wake of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision earlier this week to ramp up defense spending by slashing the foreign aid budget, Report informs via AP News.

In a letter to Starmer, which she posted on social media, Anneliese Dodds resigned as international development minister and minister for women, saying there were “no easy paths” to increasing defense spending but that she disagreed with the decision to cut overseas aid.

On Tuesday, Starmer said the government would raise UK defense spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027 from the current 2.3%, saying Europe is in a new era of insecurity that requires a “generational response.”

The increase would be funded by a reduction in the aid budget from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3%, a decision that Starmer described as “very difficult and painful.”

In her letter, Dodds said she backed the need for higher defense spending and knew that the aid budget might have to pay for some of that increase. But she said the scale of the cut was so big it will “remove food and health care from desperate people” and “deeply” harm the UK’s reputation.