Sir Keir Starmer is heading to his last NATO summit as Prime Minister this week, amid speculation he would not mind returning as Secretary General in the future. More troublingly, there is every chance this will be the last time Donald Trump attends the organisation's annual gathering.
Trump's attendance and grievances
The US President has stated he is only attending because his ally Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of host country Turkey, essentially begged him not to skip it. Trump's perennial complaints about the unfairness of the NATO agreement have returned with increased intensity. He remains aggrieved that NATO allies did not come to his aid during the opening days of his illegal and haphazard attack on Iran.
On Truth Social, Trump posted that other allies do not spend enough on defence. "Ridiculous for the USA to continue along this one sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal," he wrote. "They were not there for us!!!"
Starmer's relationship with Trump and Burnham's potential approach
For Starmer, the decision not to support Trump during the Iran attack was one of his most popular moves as Prime Minister. The outgoing PM offered advice to his presumptive successor, Andy Burnham, at the weekend. "There's often this discussion - what's the right balance between dealing with international affairs and dealing with domestic affairs? They're one and the same thing," Starmer told the BBC. "Whoever's my successor is going to face the same global conflict. We keep saying, and it's true, we're in a more dangerous and volatile world than we've been in for probably most of my lifetime. That's not just a phrase, that's reality."
Burnham, known as the King in the North, has focused on spending time outside Westminster but has not shown the same enthusiasm for international relations as Starmer. On a potential relationship with Trump, Burnham has remained tight-lipped. He has criticised Trump in the past but not as personally as David Lammy. If Burnham wants to charm Trump, he would do well to keep Lammy around, as the Deputy PM's Catholic bromance with Vice President JD Vance could be an asset.
Midterm elections and potential political moves
The smarter move domestically would be to wait and see what Trump does after November's midterm elections. He is either expected to lose control of Congress to the Democrats or attempt to declare the result illegitimate and illegally cling to power. If Burnham seeks to emulate his friend Hugh Grant in 'Love Actually', this would be the moment.
