Keir Starmer, British diplomat bridgehead above the Atlantic-Liberation
Choose between the United States and the European Union? Out of the question. Keir Starmer has repeated it, and now proven: it is seen as a bridge through the agitated waters of the Atlantic. An interlocutor in the pivot position, which will allow his allies on both sides of the ocean to get along despite the gap which continues to widen between them. And it must be admitted that, for the moment, and in any case until the frightening sequence of the oval office on Friday eveningits strategy seems to work well.
It was in London that Volodymyr Zelensky posed after having left Washington humiliateddeprived of lunch and press conference, and insulted by Donald Trump in front of cameras around the world. It was Keir Starmer who, having immediately maintained by phone with the two games, welcomed it for a last minute meeting on Saturday afternoon. And it is in Lancaster House, one of the palaces used for diplomatic receptions in England, that twenty European heads of state and dignitaries are welcomed on Sunday March 2, for a meeting on defense and Ukraine upstream of the extraordinary European Council on Thursday, March 6.
This relative overhanging position was won at the price of great efforts: repeated visits to plowing teams in the United States and Ukraine, including before the arrival of Starmer in Downing Street, guarantees of good will, and attempts to establish personal relations with American Republicans. The meeting between Keir Starmer and the American president on Thursday was successful in preparatory work who has left nothing to chance. The British Prime Minister arrived armed with an unstoppable invitation from King Charles III, handwritten, inviting a Trump fan of monarchy to an « unprecedented » state visit in the United Kingdom.
If Keir Starmer did not move Donald Trump on key subjects – notably an American system for protecting European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine – he seems to have entered the good graces of the American, who described him as « Hard negotiator »Who « Deserves what they pay it there ». And add: « I think there is a very good chance that, in the case of (our) two major friendly countries, we can conclude a real trade agreement in which customs duties would not be necessary. » A significant victory for the United Kingdom, which hoped for a free trade agreement with the United States since its leaving the European Union, but had seen its hopes that have coldly failed by the Biden administration. This successful sequence is also explained by the placidity of Starmer, a former attorney general, not very egotic and firm on his priorities, ready to offer wages by increasing its expenses in terms of defensewhile refusing to react to provocations.
Brexit offers a certain comparative advantage in the United Kingdom, compared to the rest of the European Union: it allows the country to place itself apart, to extricate-at least in part-in part- Customs threats that Trump waves to scare Europe. This rapprochement is not without political cost, and to want to spare the goat and the cabbage, Starmer has also attracted criticism nationally. Its increase in defense expenditure is accompanied by a reduction in international aid, which has earned the immediate resignation of the minister responsible for this portfolio. Likewise, the Scottish Nationalist Party, the SNP, criticized the second invitation addressed to Trump.
Since his election, in July 2024, Keir Starmer has disappointed his fellow citizens, taking unpopular measures and by multiplying communication errors. Some, however, see in his new international stature his « Falklands moment »: after a difficult start to the mandate and a slowed economic situation, Margaret Thatcher had also reacted in a clear way when Argentina had invaded the Malouine Islands, then British overseas territory. An episode that had reinforced its international position, while consolidating its legitimacy in the United Kingdom.
The other side on which Starmer plays is the rapprochement with Europe. Three years ago, the Russian invasion in Ukraine had already made the damaged relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, in the tone more than in acts, the practical disagreements remaining numerous. Faced with a common enemy, London, however, had blocked with the twenty-seven. This time, London goes further, promising with France troops in Ukraine to maintain peaceand Starmer is preparing to urge Europeans to line up in budget. The unpredictability of Donald Trump still pushes the rapprochement, to the point that it is now impossible to imagine European defense without the United Kingdom. More than a bridge through the Atlantic, it is a highway above the Channel that Starmer is being built.
