For a man not given to hyperbole, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Sunday news conference was as close to invoking Winston Churchill as we’re likely to see.
“I do think the United Kingdom should step up and lead. We have done that historically as a nation, and we need to do it again,” Starmer said after unveiling a four-step plan to guarantee peace in Ukraine.
“We are at a crossroads in history today. This is not a moment for more talk. It’s time to act, time to step up and lead and to unite around a new plan for a just and enduring peace,” he added.
Starmer is invoking Churchill because what Europe had viewed as a nightmare scenario – fighting Putin without US backing – is no longer just a fever dream.
Europeans are waking up to the fact they may need to take over responsibility for their own security for the first time in 80 years. Begging for a US “backstop” or aerial cover for European troops in Ukraine has so far fallen on deaf ears in the White House.
The West is witnessing a once in a generation shift. No longer can Europe conclude the US shares the trust and values that have bound the two continents together since the end of the Second World War. Barring personality clashes, the fundamentals of a rules-based international order had remained the same ever since.
It was a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, who in 1987 told his Russian counterpart to “tear down this wall!” to end Communism in East Germany. Within months of it crumbling, the East Germans had opened their first McDonalds, bewitched by American glamour.
But the rules have been replaced by a Trumpian philosophy which praises the strong over the weak, the rich over the poor and the good-looking over the plain. At its heart is the view – expressed by Trump and his deputy JD Vance on Friday – that Americans have been suckered into accepting unfair trade and paying for foreign wars.
Even before Trump’s hideous diplomatic drive-by of Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday, the world order was starting to shake when the US stood alongside Russia and North Korea to oppose a United Nations motion condemning the invasion of Ukraine.
Now the US has become an unpredictable partner, the worst-case scenario is that Trump has switched sides and is forming a new axis of hard power. A secondary interpretation is that Trump wants a series of bilateral relationships based on economics but also personalities. That currently translates to UK and Starmer good, but Canada and Trudeau bad.
By suggesting Russia will not dare to attack a Ukraine full of US businesspeople prospecting for minerals, we see Trumpism in all its stark simplicity. The best-case scenario is that Trump is leaning on Putin to settle. Starmer says Trump can be trusted. Does the Prime Minister even have a choice?
“I do not accept that the US is an unreliable ally,” Starmer said. “The US has been a reliable ally to the UK for many, many decades, and continues to be. There are no two countries as closely aligned as our two countries and our defence, our security and intelligence is intertwined in a way no two other countries are.”
Trump might be persuaded to use the US’s tremendous firepower for future good. That’s why it would be incredibly short-sighted to cancel the proffered state visit from the King to the US President.
But British diplomats will be acutely aware that Windsor Castle, where the King is expected to host Trump at a future date, could be the target for protests as the impact of the US ending its foreign aid on spending wreaks havoc across the world’s poorest nations. Expect growing calls to rescind the UK invitation.
Starmer’s success in Washington has also, ironically, driven the UK closer to the Europe again after so many years of bitterness. Starmer talks of a “coalition of the willing” of other nations contributing to Ukrainian defence. The news conference after his Sunday talks was about seeing whether that means other European boots on the ground. The Prime Minister wasn’t to be drawn.
“A number indicated today that they wanted to be part of the more forward-looking element,” he said. In Kyiv, they wait anxiously to see.
Trump is not the first American president that has told Europe to step up. But this is the first time in 80 years Europe has taken it seriously. Perhaps it’s time that bust of Winston Churchill left the Oval Office and came home.
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