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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden delivered the perfect gift for Keir Starmer when the new British prime minister arrived at the White House Wednesday.
No, not the pair of aviators — Biden’s sartorial trademark — given to Starmer as an official gift through the usual diplomatic channels.
Starmer’s real prize was the endorsement he received from his most powerful ally for his plan to move Britain closer to the EU, post-Brexit.
“I kind of see you guys as the knot tying the transatlantic alliance together, the closer you are with Europe, the more you’re engaged,” Biden said at the start of his first meeting with the new British PM.
Downing Street was quick to seize the moment. Summarizing the bilateral summit, a U.K. government spokesperson stressed that “the president welcomed the prime minister’s recent comments on establishing closer relationships with our European counterparts.”
In private, No. 10 was delighted with Biden’s comments, taken as justification for how quickly the new Labour government is moving to change Britain’s foreign policy.
Starmer’s push to fundamentally shift the U.K. to a more Eurocentric position — including greater cooperation on defense and a renegotiation of Boris Johnson’s Brexit trade deal — was always part of Labour’s policy platform. But the swift pace at which the new PM is moving toward this goal has come as a surprise.
In opposition, Starmer often shied away from talking about Brexit, or the U.K.’s future relationship with the EU, stressing only that his government would not rejoin the single market or customs union.
The Labour leader was determined not to allow his election bid to become a row over relitigating Brexit, and was reluctant to remind people about his past calls for a second EU referendum.
But with his landslide victory now achieved, Starmer is immediately leaning into his plan to bring the U.K. and EU closer together as his primary foreign policy objective.
The PM said during his press conference at the end of the NATO summit that “Britain belongs on the world stage” and that he was “determined to reset our relationship with Europe.”
He also had a clear message aimed at Britain’s European allies, in words that closely mirrored those used by Biden when he first became president.
“The U.K. is back,” Starmer said. “It’s confident, we want to play our part on the world stage.”
He added: “For very many people there was a sense after Brexit that the U.K. had become too inward-looking, was not as interested as it once was in its place on the global stage.”
A Democratic congressman, speaking frankly on the condition of anonymity like others in this article, told POLITICO that this kind of foreign policy posture would create a closer U.K.-U.S. relationship — so long as Biden remains in the White House.
“Starmer’s election comes after a period of Conservative hostility toward the EU and, frankly, to a number of us on Capitol Hill who were concerned about Brexit’s implications on the Good Friday Agreement [delivering peace in Northern Ireland],” he said.
Getting defensive
Top of the agenda for the Starmer government in pursuing this pivot back to Europe is signing a U.K.-EU defense pact.
The U.K. government wants formal channels to discuss defense policy and make it easier for British and European defense firms to cooperate.
A pact could also make it easier for Europe to coordinate defense policy, amid calls on both sides of the Atlantic for NATO’s European flank to become more self-sufficient.
Starmer said Thursday that talks on the pact began with other European leaders during the NATO summit and would ramp up at next week’s European Political Community (EPC) in southeast England.
U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey told reporters in Washington that Britain was also interested in becoming more deeply involved in Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) — the EU’s defense policy project.
A senior NATO official said the alliance was broadly supportive of the U.K. signing a pact with the EU — so long as it doesn’t lead to more protectionism in the defense sector.
“We welcome the fact the EU is doing more on security,” they said. “It’s got to be done in a way which is complimentary and recognizes NATO having the paramount role in security.”
That message has landed in London. Starmer told British journalists on the way to the summit that the pact would be “complementary with NATO.”
“NATO is still the cornerstone of defense in Europe and our approach on defense has always been NATO-first,” Starmer said.
Talk is cheap
Despite the grand rhetoric, the U.K. may find its broader goals difficult to achieve. Efforts to ease trade barriers by reducing checks on goods trade between the U.K. and EU nations look especially challenging.
One European government official told POLITICO there would certainly be “identified common interests with the U.K.” — particularly on security and defense.
But they stressed again that “there won’t be any pick and choose” of EU member benefits. Brussels is sure to demand extensive concessions for any changes to the post-Brexit relationship.
Starmer also knows the Biden endorsement may prove a brief moment of harmony ahead of a more challenging transatlantic relationship.
By January the British prime minister may be dealing with a U.S. president who finds the EU and the very idea of multilateral engagement a waste of time.
If Donald Trump returns to the White House, Starmer can expect the high praise for his internationalist instincts to come to an immediate end.
