If, on July 4, Keir Starmer becomes Britain’s first Labour Prime Minister in a decade and a half, he will face a world transformed from the one that confronted his last Labour predecessor, Gordon Brown.
In 2010, the world was still reeling from the 2008 Global Financial Crash; there was no President Xi in China and no President Putin in Russia; Donald Trump was hosting The Apprentice; and the word Brexit had yet to be coined.
A new Labour government will confront a world of multiple, interconnected, and protracted international crises — from Ukraine to Gaza, from climate change to migration. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, the parlous state of the world has hardly figured in Britain’s election campaign.
This is partly the natural domestic focus of party competition in general election campaigns. But it is also a direct consequence of Starmer’s concerted effort during his four years as the opposition leader of the Labour Party to establish credibility with voters by shadowing the Conservative government’s position on many major foreign policy issues.
This starts with traditional defense and security issues. Since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Starmer has stood four-square behind both the rhetoric and assistance provided first by Boris Johnson, and then by Rishi Sunak, currently running at £3bn ($3.8bn) annually in military aid alone.
A Starmer administration will herald no changes in this policy of unwavering support. Similarly on NATO and the question of the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent (Trident and its successor system), Starmer’s position is starkly different from his predecessor as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who shared the Labour left’s long-standing skepticism. In April, Starmer visited the Scottish shipyard where the next generation of nuclear-armed submarines is being built, and in the same month emphasized his “unshakeable commitment” to the UK deterrent.
Defense policy has become a central focus in British politics, both because of the return of war to the European continent in Ukraine, but also because public spending cuts by Conservative governments have reduced the size of the British army to its lowest since the 18th century.
Labour has matched the Conservative government’s target of raising UK defense spending to 2.5% of GDP although — in keeping with the caution on public spending pledges that is the hallmark of Starmer’s economic policy — it has not specified a target date. Yet the first year of a Labour government will see a comprehensive strategic review of Britain’s defense needs, a process that will invite a festival of lobbying for extra resources from military chiefs angry at the systematic cuts of the post-Cold War era.
Though defense policy will exhibit strong continuity, a Starmer government would in other areas seek a departure from the past 14 years. In strong contrast to a Conservative government that first delivered the Brexit referendum and then adopted a hardline interpretation of the divorce from the EU, Starmer’s language about Europe has been warm and positive.
Backed by a strong business consensus that wants to rebuild trade and investment bridges to the EU, Starmer has proposed a new start in the post-Brexit relationship. If elected, he will have a quick opportunity to demonstrate the change in tone when he hosts 40-plus European heads of state and government at the Blenheim Palace summit of the new European Political Community on July 18.
Yet, although British public opinion has swung towards regret of Brexit (a June poll showed those believing negatives outweighed positives ahead by 53%-15%), Starmer has ruled out any return to the bloc, its single market or its customs union. Labour proposes instead to initiate a UK-EU defense summit for early 2025 to further existing cooperation over the European response to Ukraine and other security challenges.
This will be accompanied by a hope that such a summit could become a regular bilateral venue to discuss a range of areas of mutual interest. Chief among these are energy security, uncertain UK-EU trade arrangements, and the vexed issue of illegal migration across the English Channel.
As with all British prime ministers, securing closeness with the White House will be a priority on Starmer’s arrival at 10 Downing Street. I expect him to appear on the White House lawn before the summer break.
Relations between Team Starmer and Team Biden are strong, but in recent months Starmer’s shadow Foreign Minister David Lammy has also put considerable effort into cultivating leading figures in the world of Republican foreign policy, in case November produces a second term for Trump rather than Biden.
Starmer will support the US stance on a range of shared challenges but will face strong internal pressure from his party for nuanced differences. In particular, many new Labour MPs will be extremely critical of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, and Starmer will have to navigate differing positions within his party, his voters, and the White House.
In relations with China, a new Labour administration will also be buffeted by the emerging trade war between Washington and Beijing, facing strong American pressure to reject Chinese technology platforms, without the collective comfort provided by EU membership.
In other areas, the doctrine of “progressive realism” set out by shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy is likely to usher in some important changes of emphasis. Starmer, a human rights lawyer by background, will be vocal in his support for international organizations and international law.
He will restore UK funding to UNWRA in Gaza that was withdrawn after the October 7 terrorist attacks, and rule out a British exit from the European Convention on Human Rights. Starmer is also likely to refocus UK leadership in areas such as climate change, and rethinking international treaties governing migration flows — areas in which Conservative prime ministers have either been absent or have dragged their feet.
The last Labour Government (and the Labour Party) was profoundly scarred by Tony Blair taking the UK into war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is highly unlikely that public opinion would countenance UK troops being used again in any overseas military intervention beyond those required by NATO.
But a Starmer government will set itself a different kind of test: to find the courage, imagination, and funding to equip Britain to face an evolving landscape of threats – one that combines complex economic, security, and technological dimensions in ways unimaginable 20 years ago.
Restructuring the way the rather traditional and segmented British bureaucracy deals with this new world will be a quiet but vital priority in the years ahead.
Lord Stewart Wood is a Labour member of the House of Lords, a former foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and chief adviser to former Labour leader Ed Miliband.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
War Without End
Russia’s Shadow Warfare
CEPA Forum 2025
Explore CEPA’s flagship event.
