International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds has resigned over the prime minister’s cuts to the aid budget. In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, Dodds said the cuts to international aid, announced earlier this week to fund an increase in defence spending, would “remove food and healthcare from desperate people – deeply harming the UK’s reputation”.
She told the PM she had delayed her resignation until after his meeting with President Trump, saying it was “imperative that you had a united cabinet behind you as you set off for Washington”.
The Oxford East MP, who attended cabinet despite not being a cabinet minister, said it was with “sadness” that she was resigning.
She expressed disappointment that instead of discussing “our fiscal rules and approach to taxation”, the prime minister had opted to allow the ODA to “absorb the entire burden”.
She said the cuts would “likely lead to a UK pull-out from numerous African, Caribbean and Western Balkan nations – at a time when Russia has been aggressively increasing its global presence”.
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