THE government should be spending on climate defence, not courting Donald Trump on war spending, Green Party leader Zack Polanski has warned.

Speaking at Tory commentator Iain Dale’s All Talk show at the Edinburgh Fringe on Saturday, Mr Polanski said that in Britain we “clearly need to up our spending” on the military.

But he added: “If we’re talking about spending 3.5 per cent of our GDP on military spending to please Donald Trump, then I think there’s an absolute incoherency in that.

“We’re already, I think, one of the five biggest spenders on military capacity and actually, I think we need to look at defence as a much more holistic issue.

“I said this week — and I really believe — that the climate crisis is the biggest threat to our national security since the second world war.”

He continued: “It is going to get worse and worse and worse. And in many ways, it’s a grim message.

“We can’t stop some of that breakdown, what we can do, though … is we can stop total breakdown, that feels beyond important to do and that’s where we should be investing right now. Not on listening to what Donald Trump says or creating arbitrary numbers of GDP.”

Defending Labour’s warfare spending, party chairwoman Bridget Philipson responded “In an increasingly dangerous world, Labour is proud to be rebuilding Britain’s armed forces and increasing defence spending to keep our country safe.

“We are also tackling the climate crisis head on. Our clean power mission is a national security mission, cutting our reliance on volatile fossil fuel markets while creating jobs and bringing bills down.”