Armed Forces Minister Al Carns Resigns Hours After Healey, Leaving Britain's Defence Ministry in Freefall Before G7

Since John Healey's resignation Thursday afternoon over the Defence Investment Plan, the Ministry of Defence has lost two ministers and at least one parliamentary aide within hours. The political fallout around Keir Starmer continued widening as of Friday, June 12.

Armed Forces Minister Al Carns, a former Royal Marine, submitted his resignation Thursday evening. His letter, which he posted to X, said the current Defence Investment Plan "is not built for the threat we face" and that "a serious country funds its defence to meet the threat it actually faces, not the threat it wishes it faced," according to the New Statesman. He added: "It has become clear to me that the change I had pushed for is not going to come."

That language is harder-edged than Healey's. Carns didn't just criticize the funding numbers. He appeared to call for new leadership, writing: "We need a new way of governing and we need it now."

What the DIP Actually Says

The Defence Investment Plan, finalized Monday and publicly unveiled June 2, includes what the government describes as the largest UK defence budget increase since the Cold War, with commitments toward up to 12 new attack submarines and £15 billion for nuclear warheads, according to uknip.co.uk. Starmer's government has committed to spending 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035.

The problem, per Healey's resignation letter cited by The Independent: the front-loaded spending doesn't match front-loaded risk. Healey wrote that the "imperative to speed up readiness to fight is in the first two years" but that meaningful additional funding doesn't arrive until after 2030. The Daily Mail reported the plan increases defence spending by 0.08% of GDP, short of the 3% Healey had been pushing for, as noted in BBC's newspaper review Friday.

Starmer's response to Healey's resignation: "I am proud of our record on funding" and the plan "will provide the resources our military needs to keep us safe," according to BBC News. A Treasury spokesperson, cited by uknip.co.uk, told GB News the Chancellor "will always do what is right and needed to keep this country safe" and pointed to "record defence spending uplifts."

The government's case rests on several points. Defence budgets involve hard tradeoffs, borrowing limits are real, and Starmer's team argues that fiscal discipline is itself a national security issue. Sustainable spending commitments may be worth more than promises that bust the budget and collapse under the next government. The Treasury argues that the UK has made multi-billion pound commitments, and the debate centers on whether the timing matches the threat.

But the Resignations Keep Coming

Labour MP Pamela Nash also resigned as a parliamentary private secretary at the MoD, according to BBC News. Healey had asked other MoD ministers to stay despite his departure. They didn't.

Dan Jarvis, the security minister and a former British Army officer, has been appointed to replace Healey as Defence Secretary, BBC confirmed. Starmer had yet to formally respond to Carns' resignation letter.

The timing is brutal. Starmer is days away from the G7 summit in the south of France, where European leaders are expected to face pressure from Donald Trump over defence spending commitments. Losing two defence ministers right before that meeting, on the specific issue of defence spending, is not a good look. Starmer's opponents know it.

BBC political editor Chris Mason noted Thursday that the resignations come just as Starmer had tried to use the Defence Investment Plan as evidence of his government's direction and competence, positioning it against leadership rivals who are, in Mason's framing, "plotting and schmoozing with Labour MPs."

The Broader Leadership Picture

This is not just a defence policy dispute. According to The Independent, Healey is the fourth Cabinet minister to leave Starmer's government since Labour came to power, and the second to resign over policy differences. The Independent also reported that Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is "on resignation watch," with Labour MPs saying she is "very, very unhappy" with the direction of government and has already told Starmer he needs to set a timetable for departure from Downing Street.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is running in the upcoming Makerfield by-election, widely seen as a launchpad for a leadership challenge. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Healey's resignation showed Starmer's premiership "falling apart." Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey called it "a wake-up call."

Carns himself has been named as a potential future Labour leader, which makes his public call for "a new way of governing" more than just a policy complaint.

The Unresolved Question

The crux nobody has answered on the record: can Jarvis, the new Defence Secretary, actually deliver a revised DIP with materially better front-loaded funding, or is the Treasury's position fixed? If the funding timeline doesn't change, Jarvis inherits the same political grenade Healey and Carns just threw back at Downing Street.