UK development minister resigns saying cuts will affect Gaza and Sudan
Anneliese Dodds, the UK's international development minister, has resigned after the government announced a massive cut of the international aid budget, which she said would likely impact programmes in Gaza and Sudan.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to increase defence spending from 2 percent of GDP to 2.5 percent by 2027, with a target to hit 3 percent by the end of the next parliament.
That would partly be funded, he announced, by slashing aid from 0.5 percent of gross national income to 0.3 percent.
Dodds said on Friday that it would be "impossible" to deliver such aid cuts without it impacting programmes such as those in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine.
She wrote in her resignation letter to Starmer that the postwar global order had "come crashing down" and that she agreed with increased defence spending.
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"The tactical decision was taken for ODA [official development assistance] to absorb the entire burden. You have maintained that you want to continue support for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine; for vaccination; for climate; and for rules-based systems," she wrote.
"Yet it will be impossible to maintain these priorities given the depth of the cut; the effect will be far greater than presented, even if assumptions made about reducing asylum costs hold true."
In September, Dodds wrote a column for Middle East Eye, in which she stated the plight of women and girls needed to be at the heart of the global response to the war in Sudan.
The outgoing minister told Starmer that his decision would likely lead to the UK pulling out from African, Caribbean and Western Balkan nations "at a time when Russia has been aggressively increasing its global presence".
Dodds added that the UK would likely have to leave a number of multilateral bodies and have a reduced role in the G7, G20, World Bank and climate negotiations.
"I know you have been clear that you are not ideologically opposed to international development. But the reality is that this decision is already being portrayed as following in President Trump's slipstream of cuts to USAID."
Days earlier, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that Britain would "protect the most vital programmes in the world's worst conflict zones of Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan", but other programmes doing vital work "will have to be put on hold".
It was earlier this month that Lammy described Trump's decision to make large cuts in USAID was a "big strategic mistake" which would allow China to further its global influence.
The Guardian reported on Friday that the cut would take overseas aid to its lowest percentage of national income since records began.
Experts told the Guardian that aid programmes in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria are likely to be among those affected.
On Thursday, 138 charities wrote to Starmer this week condemning the decision.
"It is alarming that the UK is now following in the US’s footsteps and has accepted the false choice of cutting the already diminished UK aid to fund defence," they wrote.
"No government should balance its books on the backs of the world's most marginalised people. The previous UK aid cuts and the current US aid freeze have already shown their impact: children are now at risk of missing out on vaccines, girls may lose access to education, and healthcare services in refugee camps are being withdrawn."
The charities said that in the long term, alternative funding could be secured through a wealth tax, while in the short term, the proceeds of the sale of Chelsea FC could be used.
The football club was among a number of assets frozen from Russian oligarch Roman Abramovic after Russia invaded Ukraine.
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