'Spineless Starmer is turning UK into a military pygmy': Farage blasts PM as Iran's leader in exile pleads for British support and top brass warn of £28bn funding crisis
The Reform UK leader said it was 'terrifying' that the UK faced a £28 billion shortfall in defence funding.
By GLEN OWEN and CAROLINE GRAHAM
Published: 21:50 GMT, 10 January 2026 | Updated: 05:39 GMT, 11 January 2026
Nigel Farage has condemned Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘spineless’ approach to defence spending, which he says has left Britain looking like a ‘pygmy’ as the world teeters on the edge of multiple incendiary conflicts.
With Iran facing meltdown, Donald Trump threatening war over Greenland and Vladimir Putin menacing Europe through Ukraine, the Reform UK leader said it was ‘terrifying’ that the UK faced a £28 billion shortfall in defence funding.
‘Just look what’s happening in the world,’ Mr Farage writes in today’s Mail on Sunday.
‘We could soon be embroiled in operations in Iran, and are being drawn closer towards conflict with Putin, and yet thanks to spineless Starmer failing to properly fund our Armed Forces we are now military pygmies on the international stage.’
Last week it was revealed that the UK’s top military chief, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, told the Prime Minister that the MoD faces a £28 billion shortfall between now and 2030.
Mr Farage’s words came amid the escalation of violent street protests against Iran’s Islamic regime, with diplomatic sources predicting that the UK could be drawn into military action if President Trump acts to topple the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Tonight, exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi – the man tipped to be the next Shah of Iran if Khamenei is ousted – told the MoS that the UK Government should stand with the Iranian protesters ‘in their hour of need’.
The 64-year-old said: ‘The Iranian people are moving forward with great courage and determination. In the last few days they have responded to my calls to action in their millions’.
Reform leader Nigel Farage said it was ‘terrifying’ that the UK faced a £28 billion shortfall in defence funding
Farage has condemned Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘spineless’ approach to defence spending, which he says has left Britain looking like a ‘pygmy’
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of major cities across Iran on Friday night chanting ‘Bring back Pahlavi!’
Pahlavi, who fled to the US with his father, the deposed Shah, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, also revealed that he is spearheading regime change by offering members of Iran’s hated Revolutionary Guard and military the chance to secretly switch sides using a secure QR code.