UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has attacked Conservative Leader, Kemi Badenoch, accusing her of seeking relevance and posing as the saviour of Western civilisation.

Badenoch, a British-Nigerian citizen has recently subjected the West African country to severe invectives at every opportunity, a development that recently prompted Vice President, Kashim Shettima to push back on the harsh narratives.

Badenoch had challenged Starmer over the hike in defence spending, after the PM said the rise amounted to £13.4 billion, BBC reported.

The PM announced the UK will reallocate aid funds to boost military spending to 2.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2027, following President Donald Trump’s demand that all European allies increase their defence contributions.

Badenoch questioned Keir over the exact amount, which Defence Secretary John Healey said could be calculated as £6 billion when inflation was taken into account, and whether the Chagos deal would be funded from it.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Badenoch asked whether any of the new funding would be going towards the multi-billion pound Chagos deal twice.

“She has appointed herself, I think saviour of the western civilisation in a desperate search for relevance,” the UK Prime Minister added.

Badenoch focused her questions to the prime minister on which figure for the defence rise – his initial £13.4 billion or £6 billion, which Healey said was the increase “in real terms” – was correct.

Keir responded: “If you take the numbers for this financial year and then the numbers for the financial year 2027-28, that’s a £13.4bn increase. “That’s the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War which will put us in a position to ensure the security and defence of our country and of Europe.”

Badenoch pressed him again, saying: “The IFS said today that the government is playing silly games with numbers. How does he find this difference in numbers?”

Repeating himself, the PM then said they had already been “going through the same question over and over again” at previous PMQs and said “if you ask again I’ll give the same answer again”, to loud cheers from his backbenchers.

Objecting, Badenoch pointed out that “being patronising is not the same as answering the question”.

When Badenoch suggested Sir Keir had listened to her advice on using international aid money for defence, he said: “I’m going to have to let the leader of the opposition down gently… She didn’t feature in my thinking at all. I was so busy over the weekend I didn’t even see her proposal.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey urged the prime minister to back the idea of a European rearmament bank “so that we can finance a big increase in manufacturing capacity without the need to cut Britain’s vital soft power”.

The prime minister replied that there was “an ongoing discussion” with allies about future funding and he would share details with MPs “as it evolves”.

Video caption,’Taking in inflation, it would be something over £6bn’: Healey on the defence increase

Earlier, a former defence chief of staff said he believed the decision to hike UK defence spending has been “accelerated” by President Donald Trump’s actions on Ukraine.

General Sir David Richards said the decision to raise defence spending over the next two years was a sound strategic move, but one that “almost certainly would not” be happening if not for Trump.

“It was going to happen, it’s now been accelerated by Donald Trump’s actions, and all of us, I think, would say not before time,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Lord Richards stressed the British Army was currently “very hollowed out indeed” and suggested the “army isn’t big enough” currently for British troops to be part of a rotation of European peacekeeping forces.

Questions have been raised about the Labour government’s U-turn on its manifesto pledge to raise international development funding to 0.7 per cent of gross national income, with unease among some Labour MPs about the move.

Speaking at PMQs, Labour backbencher Diane Abbott suggested the decision could increase the risk of conflict abroad, telling the PM that “there is also a view that taking money from aid and development to spend on armaments and tanks makes people less safe, not more safe, because the desperation and poverty that so often leads to warfare is what aid and development money is supposed to counter