Keir Starmer’s Blenheim Palace trip completes a positive international induction round

The Starmer government has hit the proverbial ground running both at home and abroad. At home, the King’s Speech has just set out an ambitious legislative programme, aimed at turning manifesto promises into real world change.  

But the real learning curve for new prime ministers is the extent to which foreign affairs occupies their diary and preoccupies their attention. The new government has from day two been in action to reset relations with European powers and the European institutions – and to reaffirm existing strong relations with the US and Ukraine. The prime minister himself made his first foreign visit to the NATO summit, had quality time with the US president – and then a fortuitous chance to hang out in Berlin with the two other leading social democrat leaders in Europe: Germany’s chancellor Scholz and Spanish prime minister Sanchez. The final did not go England’s way, but with Scholz and Sanchez undoubtedly envying Starmer’s political strength at home it might have been diplomatically better to watch another defeat for Gareth Southgate. But one of the German government complaints about Rishi Sunak was how long it took him to turn up in Berlin. Starmer arrived after only a week in office.  

The EPC offered a low risk opportunity to dial up the improved mood music

Then, less than two weeks after becoming prime minister, Keir Starmer was able to host a mass gathering of European leaders on UK soil. When Rishi Sunak finally announced the date for the European Political Community (ECP)as mid-July, many people took it as evidence that he was definitely looking to an autumn election. Instead he created an ideal opportunity for Keir Starmer to get to know his fellow European leaders at a meeting where little is at stake but where there is a lot of opportunity for warm words.  

Unlike other summits, there is no communique and it really is little more than a talking shop. But when you are new on the international stage, opportunities to host and get a feel for your interlocuters face to face is good. Now the UK is outside the EU, UK ministers have much less opportunity for regular catch-ups than they once did – and England cannot be guaranteed to reach the finals of major football championships regularly enough to make that an adequate substitute.  

The prime minister augmented the summit with two critical bilaterals – a chance to get to know the (also relatively new) taoiseach, Simon Harris complete with near obligatory Guinness photocall and a post-summit dinner with president Macron. Suitably positive reviews followed – Harris called Starmer’s decisions since the election game-changing and Macron signed up to an UK-France summit next year.  

Other European leaders look in a much weaker position than Keir Starmer

The problem for Starmer is that while he may now look like a political colossus in the UK, the leaders of other major European powers are on life support. President Macron’s government has just resigned and it is far from clear who will be the new French prime minister,  nor how long it will take to form a new government and then how successful the prospective “cohabitation” will be. The German coalition was also weakened by the parties’ dismal showing in the European parliament elections, faces a series of difficult Land elections in the autumn and next year will be focussing on the upcoming federal election. Sanchez’s wife is facing corruption investigations that he has once already threatened to quit over. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen could not attend as she needed to make sure she won her confirmation vote in the European parliament.  

Starmer needs to think about how to pursue his objectives with the UK’s European neighbours

Having met their counterparts, the prime minister and this team need to build on those initial contacts. There are very positive vibes about closer cooperation on defence and security – not least given the increasingly likely prospect that Donald Trump will return to the Oval Office in January. But there are wrangles to be had about what that cooperation actually means in practice – for example whether it gives UK companies access to any EU funded procurement programmes. Starmer managed to stave off criticism at the NATO summit about not setting a date for increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP (which the Conservatives had said they would do by 2030) – but cannot duck that forever – and all the pledges of support for Ukraine may become much more expensive if the US bows out.  David Lammy has suggested that security cooperation can be quite widely defined, moving from defence into wider areas such as energy and climate, and economic security. There are very good reasons for closer cooperation on energy and climate (though where the EU goes on its climate ambitions is not that clear after the EP elections) – but the EU may be suspicious about what else the UK wants to include.  

Starmer picked up the theme of managing irregular migration that Sunak had wanted to be the centrepiece of the EPC. He needs much closer cooperation with European countries to help his policy of “smashing the gangs” – and he will need to spend time warding off Conservative attacks that boats would have been stopped if he had not dropped the Rwanda deterrent (arguably a much easier case for them to make than if it had been tried). His task now will be to turn that into action.  

And while the big ticket items made the headlines in Washington and Oxfordshire, new EU relations  minister Nick Thomas-Symonds and Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn will find themselves managing day to day frictions in the UK-EU relationship, and in particular the implementation of the Windsor Framework. Starmer will need to ensure that those do not manage to cast shade on the very positive first impression he created in the sun at Blenheim Palace.