The United Kingdom has a new prime minister in the form of Sir Keir Starmer. His Labour Party secured a majority of around 170 seats in Thursday’s election, giving him significant latitude to make new laws. Starmer is married with two teenage children.
Law is something Starmer knows quite a bit about. Prior to his 2015 entry into Parliament, he was the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales. That put him in charge of all criminal prosecutions. Earning respect for his willingness to pursue cases against corrupt politicians from different parties, including Labour, Starmer was knighted after leaving this role in 2014. The new prime minister is viewed as a somewhat boring but otherwise smart and decent man. After years of Conservative chaos, that is likely to give him a honeymoon period with the British public.
But what policies will Starmer pursue in office? And how will his premiership affect the U.S.-U.K. special relationship?
Starmer is expected to stay close to the political center ground, at least at the start of his term. Labour has pledged not to increase either income or sales taxes. Party leaders say they’ll focus on ensuring that government borrowing is kept in check. The corporation tax rate will be held at 25%. Key priorities will be a reduction in illegal immigration and reduced waiting periods for doctor’s appointments — the U.K. has a socialized medical system in which demand far outstrips supply.
On foreign policy, Starmer will attempt to boost the economy by increasing cooperation with the European Union. And while new U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy says he wants to strengthen trade and cooperation with China, the degree to which Starmer’s government pursues this increased cooperation will be a key test of its commitment to the special relationship. Both the Biden and prospective Trump administrations are, after all, deeply concerned with consolidating allies in the face of Chinese aggression, intellectual property theft, and espionage.
I suspect that Starmer’s government is unlikely to seek the same measure of conciliation with China that has defined Australia under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Abandoning his conservative predecessor’s hawkish China stance, Albanese has focused heavily on boosting trade with China. He has played to Chinese sympathies to achieve that objective. But once Starmer and Lammy start receiving intelligence briefings on China, they are more likely to recognize the threat Beijing poses.
The U.K. produces some of the very best intelligence on the Chinese Communist Party, particularly via its MI6 human intelligence service, of which Lammy is the supervising minister. This intelligence will underline Chinese President Xi Jinping’s aggressive ambitions against Taiwan and the United States and, of likely concern to Starmer, Beijing’s substantive human rights abuses and efforts to undermine U.K. democracy.
Of note, Lammy has established a budding friendship with Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH). With Vance a vice presidential contender for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, the Lammy-Vance relationship is likely to provide the conduit for Starmer-Trump engagement. Considering their different world views and personalities, Starmer and Trump won’t be natural partners, to say the least. Because of Labour’s hesitation about the privatization of the U.K.’s health service, a U.S.-U.K. trade deal will likely struggle to reach fruition in the event Trump takes office.
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Still, the enmeshed security and economic relationship between the U.S. and the U.K., especially in terms of intelligence and military cooperation, means that both have strong incentives to make things work. Amid Biden’s plummeting poll numbers, Lammy is likely to prioritize engagement with Trump-aligned conservatives on his upcoming visits to Washington.
Top line: At least in the interim, Starmer is unlikely to produce any significant change to either the U.K.’s domestic or foreign policy.
