UK development minister resigns saying cuts will affect Gaza and Sudan

UK's Shadow International Development Secretary, Preet Gill, has announced her resignation. This follows the UK government's announcement of significant cuts to the international aid budget, which Gill stated could have a major impact on aid projects in places like Gaza and Sudan. The decision has sparked widespread attention and controversy.

Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to increase defense spending from 2% to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, with a goal of reaching 3% by the end of the next parliament. Starmer indicated that some of the funding would be achieved by reducing aid spending from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross national income.

Gill stated on Friday that it would be "impossible" to achieve such a significant aid reduction without impacting aid projects in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, among other places. In her resignation letter to Starmer, she wrote that the post-war global order had "collapsed," and while she agreed with increasing defense spending, she believed it was wrong to use aid cuts as the primary source of funding.

In her letter, Gill pointed out that the government's strategy was to have official development assistance (ODA) bear the entire burden. "You have consistently said that you want to continue supporting Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, supporting vaccinations, climate action and a rules-based system," she wrote, "However, given the scale of the cuts, it is not possible to maintain these priorities; even if the assumptions about reducing asylum costs hold true, the impact will be far greater than anticipated."

Gill added that the UK may have to withdraw from some multilateral institutions and play a smaller role in the Group of Seven (G7), the Group of Twenty (G20), the World Bank, and climate negotiations. "I know you are not ideologically opposed to international development. But the reality is that this decision has been portrayed as emulating President Trump's cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)."

Days earlier, Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy stated that the UK would "protect the most important projects in the world's worst conflict zones, such as Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan," but other projects that are doing important work "will be shelved." Lammy had previously stated that Trump's significant cuts to USAID were a "major strategic error" that would allow China to further expand its global influence.

The Guardian reported on Friday that the cuts would bring overseas aid to its lowest level as a proportion of national income on record. Experts told The Guardian that aid projects in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Nigeria could be affected. On Thursday, 138 charities sent a letter to Starmer condemning the decision.

The charities wrote in their letter: "It is shocking that the UK is now following in the footsteps of the US, accepting the misguided choice of cutting already reduced UK aid to fund defense." They added that alternative funding could be obtained in the long term through a wealth tax, and in the short term, the proceeds from the sale of Chelsea Football Club could be used. The football club was among the frozen assets of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.