Starmer's Foreign Policy Challenges
Keir Starmer inherited two wars and a country disconnected from the EU when he arrived in Downing Street – and that was before Donald Trump crash-landed at the White House, undermining the foundations of the UK's most important alliance. Analysts say foreign policy was an 'area of relative strength' for the prime minister, but goodwill with the White House soon evaporated.
Initial Rapport with Trump
Though the ageing Joe Biden and Starmer overlapped for six months, it was the relationship with Trump that was dominant. At first, the Labour prime minister appeared to have struck an unlikely rapport with the Republican. It was helped by Starmer publicly handing over an invitation to Trump from King Charles for a second state visit when he came to the Oval Office in February 2025. 'This is unprecedented,' Starmer gushed, and Trump accepted there and then.
During the ensuing state visit last September, with Trump kept tactfully out of London, the US president muted a disagreement with Starmer over Palestinian statehood – and the two seemed largely in agreement in condemning Russia over Ukraine.
Ukraine: A Moment of Harmony
Trump began his presidency dramatically favouring Russia and lambasting Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the Oval Office. European leaders were left aghast at the possibility of Kyiv being abandoned. On his way back from that bruising visit to Washington, Zelenskyy was due in London for a European summit. But he was also flown by helicopter to visit the king at Sandringham in Norfolk. The short trip, approved by Starmer at Ukraine's request, visibly demonstrated British support for Kyiv at a critical moment.
When Zelenskyy visited the Oval Office again, in August, Starmer was one of several European leaders who flew in alongside him. It was just days after Trump had met Russia's Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and the US president had appeared convinced that Ukraine needed to be told to give up territory to end the war quickly. Strength in numbers worked: the Russian demand briefly favoured by Trump drifted from the agenda, and has not been revived since. Peace in Ukraine would have to be lasting, fair and just, Starmer said as he headed into the meeting.
Iran: Goodwill Evaporates
Russian intransigence prevented further progress on Ukraine, so Trump moved on to Venezuela and then Iran, at which point the goodwill evaporated. The UK was not informed in advance of the almost certainly illegal US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, which began with the killing of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Within days, Trump was complaining about an initial refusal by Starmer to allow the use of RAF bases for bombing Iran. 'This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with,' Trump said in early March, beginning a month of jibes, as the bombing of Iran continued to a limited purpose for 38 days while oil prices soared.
Starmer refused to rise to the petty bait, avoiding a deeper split with the US – while refusing to join in with the war Trump had started, other than to allow attacks on Iranian missile launch sites from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. 'President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in Britain's national interest,' Starmer told MPs in characteristically wordy fashion.
Sir Peter Westmacott, a former UK ambassador to the US, argued that 'foreign policy has been an area of relative strength' for Starmer, and that the prime minister had got off a strong start with Trump, 'though the president's failure to consult with allies or justify his war with Iran left him with little choice but to stand aside'.
Defence Spending and Military Readiness
The paucity of independent British power was demonstrated by the three-week struggle to get a single warship, HMS Dragon, to Cyprus after a Hezbollah drone hit the RAF base at Akrotiri. A 20-year minesweeping Royal Navy mission in the Gulf had been quietly abandoned at the end of 2025, just before it was needed. It emphasised how far the UK's armed forces had been run down since the end of the cold war.
The problem was nominally recognised by the prime minister, though he struggled to respond to pressure to increase military budgets in a more uncertain world. Starmer had been surprised by Nato's plan last summer to increase defence spending by £30bn to 3.5% of GDP by 2035; the UK was one of the last to sign up. Instead, Starmer would only commit to increase defence spending modestly, by about £5bn to 2.6% of GDP by 2027, taking the money from the UK's aid budget. 'That is not an announcement I am happy to make,' the prime minister said last February, though any talk of restoring aid spending soon disappeared.
Though the prime minister said in February that Britain 'needs to go faster' on defence spending, it was not accompanied by fresh commitments. A six-month row about future military spending burst into the open this month with the sudden resignation of the once-loyal John Healey as defence secretary, because Starmer had only offered £2bn more to lift defence spending to 2.68% by 2030.
John Foreman, a former UK defence attache to Moscow, said Starmer was 'bounced into increasing marginally defence spending but then not funding promises' as well as exhibiting 'a habit of talking big but doing little'.
EU Reset and Broader Relations
Starmer tried to pursue a reset with the EU, describing Britain as 'very much a part of Europe' at a Blenheim Palace summit in July 2024. But he had given himself little room for manoeuvre by having decided not to try to reverse any part of Brexit. Labour's manifesto committed the party to staying out of the single market and customs union, and not to reintroduce freedom of movement.
Though Starmer forged a strong relationship with France's centrist president, Emmanuel Macron – 'we have to show that pragmatic politics is the way the results that matter,' Starmer said when his French counterpart visited last July – talks for the UK to join a €150bn (£130bn) EU defence fund failed over the sum Britain would pay to join. France led the objections.
Starmer had tried to rebuild a more positive relationship with the bloc – 'slowly but surely building with the EU,' he said at the G7 summit earlier this month, amid talks of a future mobility scheme for young people in the UK and EU. But though Starmer was clearly pro-European, the ambition was limited. The prime minister insisted that the UK should not 'look backwards' to Brexit – and in a final irony, a planned reset summit next month was postponed in the wake of his resignation.
Assessment and Legacy
Sophia Gaston, a foreign policy specialist at King's College London, said it was Starmer who as prime minister 'found himself in the hotseat' after 'successive governments have run down the nation's vital defences'. But with the US unreliable and Britain still detached from the EU, the strategic dilemma is greater. 'Modest, incremental improvements simply don't cut it,' Gaston said.
