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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
National

UK plans $2bn weapons upgrade as Starmer calls for ‘war readiness’

British PM Keir Starmer tours Palantir Technologies headquarters with company employees and military personnel on February 27, 2025 in Washington, DC [Carl Court/Getty Images via AFP]

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has warned the United Kingdom must be prepared to confront and defeat hostile states with modern military capabilities, as his government unveils a 1.5-billion-pound (about $2bn) plan to build at least six new weapons and explosives factories.

“We are being directly threatened by states with advanced military forces, so we must be ready to fight and win,” Starmer wrote in The Sun newspaper on Sunday. “We will restore Britain’s war-fighting readiness as the central purpose of our armed forces.”

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