The unhelpful nationalism of ‘Buy British’ in defence

Hyperfixating on where a defence company happens to be registered will leave Britain on the back foot, writes Paul Jenkinson

During a visit to a BAE Systems Shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness last month, Andy Burnham set out his vision for the future of the British defence sector. He stated that “security is not only about what we build, but who builds it and benefits from it”.  

His political rise to Prime Minister has firmly renewed focus on ‘buying British’ across defence procurement – British money spent on British firms, as Burnham puts it. 

The logic is sound. Increasing investment in defence and national economic growth are not mutually exclusive. Rather, defence should be treated as the innovation arm of government, a force multiplier for economic growth by supporting skilled employment, research and development, and international trade. 

But in the current reality of the UK defence sector, this turn to nationalism may, in fact, prove unhelpful. 

Sovereignty is the new gold standard 

You can’t move for references to ‘sovereignty’ in government speeches, political bylines and research papers today; it has become one of the most frequently invoked buzzwords of the UK’s domestic and foreign policy. In most discussions, it goes hand in hand with the Buy British ethos, keeping capabilities on home soil to ensure resilience against emerging threats.

Sovereign capabilities in defence, technology and critical infrastructure have taken their rightful place at the top of the national agenda. Yet, all too often, the push for sovereignty asks the wrong questions. Hyperfixating on where a company happens to be registered as the metric for sovereign capability leaves the nation on the back foot.

While procuring homegrown capabilities may be an effective strategy in other sectors such as healthcare, coordination with NATO in defence is too crucial to focus on where a company is registered. The definition of sovereign capabilities is therefore fundamentally different. 

At Whitespace, we don’t supply sovereign AI to the UK defence sector simply because we are a UK-based company; we do so because the UK can depend on what we deliver. The real question should be: can the government trust that the capabilities being procured are truly resilient? 

That question brings us to the crux of the issue. 

Building genuine competitors in defence

Where buying British simply because it’s British is a counterintuitive strategy, levelling the playing field so that UK tech companies can be genuine competitors with ‘reliable’ global brands is the strategy that cannot wait. 

The government’s desire to buy logos frustrates me infinitely more than nationalism. There is a root problem to be addressed here that prioritises procedural requirements over capability and performance. The phrase “no one ever got fired for awarding a contract to IBM” comes to mind. 

If we refocus procurement on technical performance that can be genuinely relied upon and won’t be cut off at the whim of others, a boost in British defence procurement will happen naturally. We will be improving the performance of our homegrown technology companies based on merit, not rhetoric. 

Other changes to the underlying mechanics of procurement – changes that the UK tech sector has long campaigned for – will also be needed to truly level the playing field. The UK defence sector is notoriously slow with procurement. We’re penny-wise and pound-foolish, which can be devastating for a scaling company at the mercy of their timelines.

Given the right environment, British firms are more than capable of delivering the capabilities the UK defence sector needs to stay resilient against emerging threats. Not because they’re British, but because they are genuinely better for the job.

Paul Jenkinson is CEO of the British sovereign AI company Whitespace