Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the Prime Minister will regret saying he would not cut social security to pay for national security as much as Neville Chamberlain regretted the Munich Agreement.
Speaking on GB News, he said: “I have in my hand a piece of paper signed by Herr Hitler and myself, which offers peace in our time and peace with honour.
“What Andy Burnham said about social security and national security will haunt him in the same way that those words haunted Neville Chamberlain.
“The most bogus comparison: if we were to make even a small cut in our welfare bill, we could afford to fund the full NATO contribution to defence, but we don’t, and the risks get bigger.
“So today we get the results of a Russian election that went very much as forecast. Most people voted for Mr Putin. Indeed, I saw reports that some ballot slips were filled out in advance, in case anyone was in any difficulty, they knew what they had to do.
“But that gives him the mandate that he wants potentially to push the war against Ukraine further, and he and his allies have made it clear that that is a threat to the United Kingdom as well.
“Richard Horne, the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, said that we are living through the most seismic geopolitical shift in modern history.
“As Blaise Metreweli, the chief of MI6, said in December, our world is more dangerous and contested now than it has been for decades. We are operating in a space between peace and war, and let’s be clear: cyberspace is part of that contest.
“And we know that there have been cyber-attacks on the allies of the United Kingdom. We worry that they have taken place against us, and Soviet, Russian – we mustn’t call them Soviet anymore – Soviet news presenters like Vladimir Solovyov have been saying that nuclear weapons should be used against the United Kingdom.
“And what do we do? We fiddle. We do nothing. We say that we will not attack the social security budget.
“A Chancellor of the Exchequer, who resigned because, as Defence Secretary, he thought defence expenditure was not enough, gets a new job, a new post, gets one of the grandest offices in Whitehall. And what does he do? Nothing.
“Does he increase the defence expenditure he called for a few weeks earlier? No, he does nothing. He does absolutely nothing.
“When the Prime Minister thinks that he defends his voter base, his welfare-dependent voter base, by undermining our national security, it is the most pitiful form of government that we could possibly have.
“The risks get bigger, the answers get lower. It is a deeply worrying time for this nation and for our security. And Andy Burnham will be held to blame by history if he doesn’t pull himself together.”
