Ukraine and Donald Trump will define Keir Starmer’s legacy

Good morning. A well-received statement from Keir Starmer in the House of Commons has been upended by a surprise statement from Donald Trump, who yesterday paused all military aid to Ukraine. In some ways, that is going to be the story of his premiership, I think. Some thoughts on that below.

Defining moment

Here are three things that I think are true.

Keir Starmer’s handling of the Trump presidency, and that of the UK diplomatic services, has been near impeccable. From wooing him before the election to last week’s White House visit, there is good reason that he is attracting praise from his Westminster opponents and his approval ratings have improved in the country as a whole.

It has also reminded his government — not a body short of politicians who have been in Labour politics rather longer than Starmer, who are prone, from time to time, to complain about this, and about how dysfunctional his Downing Street operation continues to be, and so on — of his strengths, too. Several ministers have said to me how glad they are that Starmer is the one with his hand on the tiller.

Second, the strategy of trying to maintain as much public ambiguity over whether or not Donald Trump’s US might come to the aid of Europe — at least parts of Europe — is a good one, provided it is also coupled with serious measures to increase both the amount the UK spends on its ability to act without American assistance and the amount that it gives Ukraine. Given neither the UK nor the rest of Europe can make up for their strategic dependency on the US overnight, anything that creates the idea they are not on their own is helpful.

But it is also true that this strategy is highly unlikely to change Trump’s actions. The US president’s willingness to hold off military aid to Ukraine is what led to his impeachment in his first term. He worked to encourage congressional Republicans not to support it when he was in opposition. One senator who followed his wishes, Marco Rubio, has been rewarded by being made secretary of state. It seems unlikely, to put it mildly, that this is something that can be fixed by having Trump meet the King, or that Trump is really only doing this because he fell out with Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week.

The biggest and most important decision of Starmer’s premiership, I think, was that Telegraph article in which he declared his willingness to put British boots on the ground. Since then, he has moved to cut the foreign aid budget — even though he had to be talked around from recreating the old Department for International Development in his early days as prime minister — causing embarrassment for some of his oldest allies in order to get to 2.5 per cent defence expenditure. He has spent growing amounts of his time on international diplomacy which, whether his government is here for a short or long time, is going to be the thing that defines his legacy.

How he persuades the country to go along with big, risky changes in how we live, how we defend ourselves and what our economy looks like will shape Starmer’s premiership. And his biggest domestic challenge — for all the plaudits he is winning at home and abroad for his diplomacy — will be persuading people to stick to his plan once they feel the costs of it.

Now try this

My Oscars thoughts are that I am delighted Sean Baker, a filmmaker of incredible talent, did so well, even though I think Anora isn’t a patch on his previous film Red Rocket. (I wanted I’m Still Here to win.) Still they are both absolutely worth your time should a re-release make it to a cinema near you.

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