A week to go to the UK’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, arriving in Number Ten. Keir Starmer’s efforts to write his own, positive legacy report, especially on international relations, will not attract much attention. The big question – foreign and domestic – is ‘what now?’.
Andy Burnham sounds determined to be, and especially to be seen as, a strongly domestic-focused prime minister. But foreign and domestic policy are strongly inter-connected.
International relations are not Burnham’s comfort zone and his previous ministerial experience in health and culture has given him little experience relevant to the demands of the current era. But Burnham knows he can’t escape, ignore or delegate dealing with the various chronic and acute global challenges of our time – as he made clear in a short column for The Times last Thursday.
The real foreign policy questions are going to be around continuity and/or change. Burnham’s first instincts may be for continuity, as he steps up to be PM with the goal of making strong, positive first impressions domestically across the UK (‘in every post code’ as he put it for growth) but especially in England.
But Starmer’s ad hockery in foreign policy, dressed up as gravitas, left much to be desired, even in the face of the UK’s weakness on the international stage post-Brexit.
The UK’s Ad Hoc Foreign Policy
Keir Starmer may have hoped that some commentators’ rather benign view that he did better on the international than the domestic stage would follow him out the door of No Ten. But today Olly Robbins launched his legal case for a judicial review of his sacking in the midst of the Mandelson scandal – reminding anyone not paying attention of one of Starmer’s rather consequential mis-steps.
Navigating any state’s relations with the US under Trump’s erratic and malign leadership is a major challenge. But Starmer pushed the obsequious route to its painful, ineffective end with Trump criticising Starmer from energy to migration to Iran. Certainly, Starmer did keep the UK out of the disastrous – and continuing – US and Israeli war against Iran. But that was also a blurred approach, with the RAF flying ‘defensive’ missions in the Middle East, and UK airbases used by US planes also for ‘defensive’ strikes.
Andy Burnham, in his Times article, insists that the UK’s commitment to NATO, the nuclear deterrent and the relationship with the US will remain critical. He may aim to be more assertive in meetings with Trump but he will have to try to manage him – and inevitably there will be clashes. Burnham will, also, need to do better in linking international to domestic than talking about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz raising “the cost of filling up the family car”. He does, in the same article, talk about the centrality of his ‘new approach’ to reindustrialise by devolving power to all parts of the UK (still quite unclear what this means for the three devolved governments) and writes: “That same approach will consider foreign policy, security, social cohesion and British values as inextricably linked elements of the same strategic question”. What this really means is quite unclear. Yes, most key contemporary challenges are both international and domestic in nature. But there is a Brownian ring to his emphasis on British workers and British resilience. And if a strategy encompasses everything, all the time, it may not be effective or indeed strategic.
Burnham has already announced that Jonathan Powell – Starmer’s national security adviser and Blair’s chief of staff from 1997-2007 (through the disastrous folly of the Iraq war) – will stay in post. So, continuity not change there. Some are talking up David Miliband’s chances of becoming foreign secretary again (the man who now says his support for the Iraq war was one of his “deepest regrets”) or perhaps as a special envoy. But Burnham would do better to limit the number of Blairites from the noughties he wants to bring in.
In fact, if Ed Miliband doesn’t get to be Chancellor he would surely make a better foreign secretary than Yvette Cooper, only at ease in her domestic ministerial roles. Ed Miliband as foreign secretary could be a way to underline not renege on climate change strategy and actions. But we have yet to see whether the new prime minister will bow to those who clamour for more production from the end of its lifetime North Sea. It will certainly underline whether Burnham is going to be a climate leader or not. Bringing in a better, more serious green transition strategy for the North Sea would make much more sense and pose a genuine challenge to the Scottish government.
European Relations
Keir Starmer chose to stick to Tory red lines on the European Union – no single market, customs union or rejoining. But Starmer did succeed in creating better UK relations with the EU as an institution and with the leaders of many member states after the damage to trust and partnership that successive Tory prime ministers inflicted in their pursuit of Brexit.
It’s notable in Burnham’s Times column that he talks about the priority of “an even closer relationship with countries across Europe” especially in NATO – rather than putting his focus on the EU. Presentational maybe, but significant. The one mention of UK-EU relations is about ‘consolidating’ Starmer’s negotiations on the reset around youth mobility, emissions trading and trade in agricultural goods plus working together on illegal migration and terrorism.
But anything substantially new on the EU does not look to be on the agenda so far. And the EU will not be any more inclined to let the UK cherry-pick the single market under Burnham than under Starmer or previous Tory prime ministers. Meanwhile, UK-EU youth mobility talks are bogged down now around numbers – with the UK apparently offering barely higher numbers eligible to come from the whole EU than it already does for Australia (38,500 young people for Australia to an offer of 50,000 for the EU).
As migration numbers fall sharply, Burnham can afford to be bolder on migration, stepping back from Starmer’s hardline approach. That would be beneficial for the economy, for a tolerant, diverse UK, for EU-UK relations and, too, for the UK’s soft power. Will he dare – signals so far are not promising but time will soon tell.
Burnham is clear he will continue to back Ukraine against Russia and work with allies on that. Starmer is expected to announce this week a deal on the UK participating in the EU’s €60 billion defence loan scheme for Ukraine. That, presumably, would not be happening if Burnham disagreed. Indeed, Burnham may be happy that Starmer has already taken the flak on expenditure on the Defence Investment Plan including John Healey’s resignation last month. Burnham talks of transparency and accountability – and reindustrialisation. But substantial continuity looks to be the order of the day here too.
More Global Challenges
In one notable statement last week, Burnham apologised on Gaza saying that the Labour government had “often not been good enough” on Israel and its destruction of Gaza. He talked of putting more pressure on Israel and a potential ban on trade with illegal settlements in the West Bank (where the EU is also looking at action but member states are split). But Burnham is not going to call Israel’s genocide by its name – he will wait for the courts (however many years that may take). Under Starmer, the UK suspended arms export licenses to Israel by less than 10 per cent (30 out of around 350). This has been rightly criticised by many – including in a letter from 300 FCDO staff, a year ago, warning of UK complicity in war crimes. Will the new prime minister go further on arms or just stick to a more critical tone of voice?
Cutting the UK’s spending on development aid was another of Keir Starmer’s foreign policy mis-steps – reducing the target amount from the Tories 0.5% of gross national income (cut from Labour’s previous 0.7%) to 0.3%. The post-Brexit UK has looked ever more insular in multiple ways. And this unnecessary aid cut certainly added to that image of a UK on the sidelines, its declining influence leaving it far from leadership on key global challenges, its soft power diminishing. Development aid may not be a priority for Burnham but he could set a better target for the future. It’s another key choice – and one that some MPs and campaigners are already focusing on, not least as the UK prepares to chair the G20 in 2027.
Dealing with China is another huge area facing the UK – and one the EU is struggling with too. Starmer visited China on a state visit in January this year. Balancing trade and economic interests with security interests on China is tricky and one that left Starmer’s outgoing government paying little attention to the bigger human rights questions including crimes against humanity and genocide in Xinjiang. Pragmatism has basically ruled UK foreign policy here and that is quite likely to continue.
On climate change, perhaps Burnham will try to please all sides – talking the talk of the benefits of new technologies and renewable energy while continuing to back new runways and mega AI data centres, as they rapidly become ever more contested (not least in Scotland).
The next UN climate summit, COP 31, is to be held in Turkey in November. Burnham does not want to inherit Starmer’s label of ‘never here Keir’. But, shockingly, Starmer only decided at the last minute, after disputes amongst his advisers, even to go to the last COP 30 in Brazil. If Burnham genuinely wants to be “confident in the international leadership we can provide”, as his Times article puts it, then that is one summit he needs to confidently say, ahead of time, that he will attend. Climate change gets a mention in that article but little more. As the right and far right across Europe become more strident in their attacks on net zero, the UK’s prime minister needs to back net zero and the path to it. Will Burnham be clear here or try to bend to both sides in his rhetoric?
As the US-Iran war flares up again, there is certainly not going to be any period of calm in the number of international challenges landing on the new prime minister’s desk from next Monday. A stronger, more effective foreign secretary than we’ve seen in David Lammy and Yvette Cooper under Starmer would help – and a stronger cabinet more widely. But, as Andy Burnham will find, the global challenges of the day cannot simply be delegated to his foreign secretary, talented or not.
A shift from the continuity of values-light ad hockery to a serious strategy, and one that recognises the limits of UK power and its position as a European island off the north-west corner of the European continent, is what would begin to make a real change. But will Burnham’s focus on reindustrialisation and devolution allow for that? In a week, we will start to see the answer.