Keir Starmer’s year on the world stage: success but the home front suffers

Within days of becoming prime minister, Keir Starmer was at a NATO summit in Washington. Within a couple of weeks, he was hosting leaders from across Europe at a European Political Community meeting at Blenheim – a  perfect opportunity to make initial contacts with minimal risk. Later that month he was getting drenched in the rain at the opening of the Paris Olympics and then hopping over to Berlin to combine his known passion for football with his increasingly obvious predilection for hanging out with his foreign peers. This was a notable contrast from Rishi Sunak, who effectively delegated foreign affairs to Lord Cameron in order to stay in No.10 second guessing his chancellor.

Labour returned to power a year ago, and Starmer can look back with some satisfaction on his first 12 months on the global stage. But while his strategy is working, it is not costless – and the prime minister also needs to ensure that he can do what is necessary on the world stage without haemorrhaging political authority at home.  

Starmer’s low key style has paid dividends abroad

The prime minister has struggled at home with communications – hampered by deficiencies in the No.10 team and his own lack of charisma. But solidity and calm are assets in an era where the Russia-Ukraine war continues, the Middle East is even more febrile and flammable than usual and the US president is mercurial at best, at worst ripping up the foundations of the post-WW2 security and international economic systems. 

Starmer has resisted pressure to play to his backbenches, or to potential Green or independent voters, and denounce the US president in a “Love Actually” moment – however tempting that might have been at times. While others rushed to social media to criticise the White House after the staged bust-up with Volodomyr Zelensky, Starmer acted behind the scenes to douse the flames. 

The PM staged his own show of support with photo opps in Downing Street and the King, without ever directly criticising Trump or his vice-president. And he and his top foreign affairs team have seemingly helped to soften US attitudes to Ukraine and maintain nominal US commitment to NATO. He has also managed to cut aid to boost defence spending with only a single resignation. 

He has eschewed making UK-EU relations a big issue but has started nudging towards a more productive relationship with Europe, keeping Brexit intact while starting the process of smoothing the rougher edges. Again he is going slower and less enthusiastically than some of his backbenchers, or other more Europhile parties might want. But relations with the EU are now out of the deep freeze where Boris Johnson and David Frost pushed them, and Starmer has built on the upward momentum created by Sunak. Over time he has to hope that that offers concrete dividends.

Perhaps most impressive – and surprising – is that he has managed to impose such message discipline on his ministerial team when whoever is on the morning media round is confronted with the latest Trump Truth Social post.

In all this he has been aided by getting the right support structures in place – with Jonathan Powell proving a good pick as national security adviser, Lord Mandelson being effective in Washington and Michael Ellam working well with Nick Thomas-Symonds on the EU reset.

“Strategic sycophancy” is not costless

Its possible to argue that Starmer is simply recognising the realpolitik of how hard it is to act as a middle-sized power outside any of the big major trading blocs, and one whose national security strategy is predicated on an effective US alliance. And there are times when the UK has stood out against the US line – over the UN Resolution on Ukraine and now, in the newly published trade strategy, promising to join the WTO Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arrangement, which the US abjures. But it is not a costless strategy.

By rushing to conclude a trade “deal” with the US – undoubtedly in the short-run interests of UK industry – the UK appeared to condone a major breach of the world trading system. The UK is of course not alone: other, bigger, countries are also trying to conclude deals with Trump. But there is a longer-run price to be paid in terms of undermining the value of a rules-based trading system. 

Similarly, by refusing to call out the Trump administration’s “51st state” rhetoric on Canada, the UK has failed to stand by one of its closest allies and a key member of the Commonwealth. Unlike other European countries, the government has also kept quiet as the US administration has shown its backing for far right parties. 

And Starmer is walking a potential tightrope too in getting closer to Europe. His strategy of refusing overt choices has worked so far, but it will be interesting to see whether it can be sustained over a whole Trump term – and just how far that administration’s approach will force the UK to bend. 

Starmer needs to make sure he is not too distracted at home

It has become clear in recent weeks that the PM is paying a domestic political price for his foreign policy efforts. The prime minister is not following the natural arc of his predecessors, turning to international affairs only after early years devoted to the domestic policy agenda. But the PM’s recent admission that he has been distracted by global events underlines the need to strengthen the his policy operation in No.10. 

World events have understandably dominated Starmer’s time in No.10 so far, and they will continue to do so – but the prime minister cannot afford to allow his overseas commitments damage his standing at home.