A whirlwind of international diplomacy for the new PM – but it will only get harder from here
Sir Keir Starmer wraps his first NATO summit but a week since that exit poll dropped predicting his landslide majority.
It has been a whirlwind start, but the prime minister and his team are leaving the summit content their objectives were met.
The trip had two main aims:
- Carry out some speed-dating diplomacy;
- Set out their foreign policy priorities around Russia, Ukraine, and Europe.
One senior government figure told me as the trip drew to a close that it had been “great” to have so many leaders here in the first full week of Sir Keir’s term.
“It’s short cut a process that could otherwise have taken months to get round everyone, and meant we could make the most of the momentum coming out of the election and while there was maximum interest in the PM to raise all the strategic issues we wanted to and reset from our predecessors.”
In this, there was both continuity and change.
When it comes to NATO and Ukraine, Sir Keir is all about continuity Sunak – re-committing to the £3bn a year of funding already promised, while also urging NATO allies to lift defence spending over time.
In his closing remarks, Sir Keir told NATO allies that “in light of the grave threats to our security, we must go further”. He urged allies to lift spending to 2.5% of GDP as he reiterated his pledge to “set out a clear path” to get the UK there – despite telling me in an interview earlier that it would be “unserious” to “simply to pick an arbitrary date”.
If he intends to reach the target, he has to make good on the pledge in his first term, and I suspect this will be a theme that keeps running through his defence review and his premiership if he refuses to commit in the first term of office.
It also somewhat undermines his overtures to fellow allies.
But while there is change over in Europe, the new administration is keen to shake off Brexit baggage and reset relations with EU partners after a tense few years between successive Conservative prime ministers and other European capitals over Brexit’s execution.
Sir Keir wants to deepen trade, security and defence ties with European neighbours, and viewed this summit as an opportunity to kickstart that work.
But on the edges of this summit, the PM also talked about issues back home – the prisons crisis being the top of his in-tray, with an announcement expected later outlining how the government will tackle the acute shortage of prison places.
As one of the Number 10 team put it to me: “We’re well aware this is the honeymoon.”
It’s only going to get harder when they get home.
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