What Labour landslide means for geopolitics
Labour returns to power in a vastly changed world with Trump's potential re-election, UK's EU dilemma, Russia-Ukraine conflict, China strategy, and economic woes.
Washington When the Labour Party was last in power in 2010, Donald Trump was just a New York real estate businessman and television celebrity. UK was a member of the European Union. The West and Russia had a functional and working, and at times even collaborative, relationship. London viewed Beijing as a partner. Tony Blair’s much-reviled decision to back the American invasion of Iraq and the continued war in Afghanistan dominated public consciousness. And the world was still reeling from the effects of the global financial crisis.
Almost 15 years later, as Labour returns to power, it is a new world.
Trump has not just been the President of the US once but is, at the moment, the overwhelming favourite to return to the White House in November, and has promised a radically different approach to Europe than his predecessor. London has spent close to a decade first deciding to get out of EU, then managing the specifics of how to get out of EU, then regretting this break-up with the continent, and now wants a new relationship with EU, but without the vows of the past. Russia has invaded Ukraine, while the UK is among Kyiv’s most ardent backers, pitting London and Moscow into a proxy war. The West, particularly Washington DC, clearly sees Beijing as an adversary and competitor, though it remains locked in a staggeringly complex and interdependent economic relationship with China. Tensions in West Asia have returned, but now in the backdrop of Hamas’s terror attacks and Israel’s brutal, disproportionate and destructive campaign in Gaza. And the global economy remains fragile, with UK’s own economic indicators way more dismal than any other advanced economy.
It is this world that Keir Starmer and David Lammy, the man named as UK’s new foreign secretary, have inherited and will navigate. A reading of the Labour manifesto, Starmer and Lammy’s extensive public interventions on the world, and the analysis of experts in Washington DC and London indicates that with the changes in Westminster and Whitehall, there will be a freshness in style, definite tweaks to policy, and even a new world view based on what Lammy called “progressive realism” in an essay in Foreign Affairs.
Take two broad global issues, UK’s current policy, Labour’s view, and the challenge that Starmer will confront.
Europe, Ukraine and Trump’s shadowThe first is European security, America’s role and the future of Ukraine. Next week, to mark the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), the grouping’s leaders will congregate in Washington DC in what will be Starmer’s first public outing as UK’s PM.
Just like the Conservatives, Labour remains committed to Nato and the special relationship with the US. The bloc has also assumed a new life since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and seen both an expansion in its membership, a sense of purpose among member states, and more tangible commitments. And there will be both celebration of Nato and expressions of renewed commitment to it from American and European leaders that Starmer will happily join.
But none of this can hide the uncomfortable reality that confronts the bloc. Trump has disdain for America’s European allies and views them as freeloaders who ride on US doing the heavy lifting financially and militarily. He has demanded that other countries do more and has even said that if they don’t do their bit — defined as spending a certain proportion of the GDP on defence — Russia can do what it wants. This statement has led to interpretation that the US, under Trump, may no longer be committed to Article 5 that warrants that an attack on one NATO member will be treated as an attack on all and will invite provisions for collective defence.
There is meeting ground between a potential Trump administration and Starmer on the question of military commitments. Labour has already committed to increasing its defence spending. In his Foreign Affairs essay, Lammy wrote, “Americans increasingly need convincing that Europeans do enough to protect their own continent’s security. And as the United States becomes more focused on Asia, it will have less bandwidth for action elsewhere. The United Kingdom is ready for difficult conversations about burden sharing, as long as they are part of a serious process that reinforces collective security.”
The more challenging question for Starmer is Ukraine if Trump wins. The UK remains a fervent supporter of Kyiv across party lines. But ever since the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed last year, the momentum on the battleground has shifted in Russia’s favour. Partisan divisions in the US meant a delay in replenishing Ukraine’s security needs, even as China stepped up its assistance to Russia. And Trump has promised that he will end the war before he takes office if elected. Many in Europe fear that Trump will be willing to do a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on terms that will embolden Moscow to be even more aggressive. This will be Starmer and Lammy’s real battle at the end of the year and test whether they have enough influence with Trump’s Washington to reorient its direction and continue to support Kyiv, or whether Trump decides to go his way even at the cost of European opposition, leading to a deeper strain in the Trans-Atlantic Alliance.
China and Indo-PacificIn its manifesto, the Labour Party has promised to bring a “long-term and strategic” approach of dealing with China after “14 years of damaging Conservative inconsistency”. Summing up underpinnings of the new approach, the manifesto says, “We will cooperate where we can, compete where we need to, and challenge where we must.” The manifesto also promises an “audit” of UK’s relationship with China, and commits its support to AUKUS, the trilateral nuclear submarine pact between the US, UK and Australia that is meant to boost deterrence against China.
Separately, in his essay outlining the progressive realist vision of Labour, Lammy has traced London’s shift under the Tories where David Cameron in 2015 promised a “golden era of engagement” with China to “overt hostility” under Liz Truss to “confused ambiguity” under Rishi Sunak. Instead, Lammy said that UK’s consistent approach must be based on recognising that Beijing “poses a systemic challenge for British interests and the Chinese Communist Party poses real security threats”. At the same time, this approach, Lammy has argued, must also recognise China’s importance to the British economy and need to work with China on transnational challenges.
There has been a shift in London’s view of Beijing in recent years, and Labour’s pronouncements suggest that this shift towards a more confrontational approach will continue. It also means that London will seek to invest in other Indo-Pacific powers. If Trump returns to power, and decides on a belligerent approach to Beijing, the UK may also be under external pressure to emulate some of America’s measures. But like others in the West, after allowing an overwhelming dependence on China to grow, the Labour government too will struggle to disentangle the threads of economic connectivity with Beijing and will have to face hard choices about UK’s short term economic needs and medium-term security imperatives.
At the core, given Britain’s deeply troubling domestic indicators, its foreign policy success will be a function of its domestic revival. As Bronwen Maddox and Olivia O’ Sullivan of Chatham House noted after the results, “Whether Labour improves Britain’s standing in the world will depend on whether it can fix the UK’s problems at home, including its failure to achieve growth in productivity, its patchy education system, regional divergences and failing health system.” Fourteen years after it was ousted from power, Labour has a new mandate but also new challenges at home and in the world.