Ralph Farrow: Starmer’s statesmanship must not be a temporary act

Ralph Farrow is an A-Level Student studying History, Geography and Economics. 

Even for the most politically detached amongst us, it is not hard to conclude that the conventional wisdom around the world is crumbling.

Individual countries are realising that the outdated status quo and failed consensus of the past few decades is not fit for the modern age. A rapidly changing world, beset with enemies that are intent on using new methods of warfare to undermine the West, is not compatible with this previous thinking. Now, each segment of our troubled world is bound to come under intense examination.

The most obvious and open demonstrator of this particular perspective comes in the form of the Trump administration. The brand of Conservative Realism – the belief that a recognition of change can lead to the success of hard-nosed foreign policy solutions – has swept the White House.

The breathtaking pace of change has left much of our political and cultural elite stranded. Overseas, President Trump’s priorities are shaped to consist of the preservation of American interests. Due to our unmatched alliance with the United States, the pursuit of this end – in all likelihood – will have positive externalities for us too.

This does not eliminate the difficultly of the transition to this methodology. The fallout from the Trump-Zelensky meeting and the ensuing war of words has certainly intensified existing hostilities. Mistakenly, a large swath of our politicians are keen on presenting this as the historically defining fracture in the Western coalition. Domestically, what we should be focusing on is who exactly will be the bridge between the two embattled parties.

The natural inheritor of such a title is our Prime Minister.

Naturally, it is crucial that we support our government’s efforts to protect our nation. Keir Starmer has responded diplomatically and, to his credit, helped convince Zelensky to come back to the negotiating table. It would be foolish to wish to see our country militarily degraded in favour of harming a government of the opposing party.

However, I cannot suppress the feeling that our Prime Minister’s performance is nothing more than temporary acting. In this time of considerable uncertainty and trepidation, we have ended up with a leader who does not look capable of stepping up to face the world.

Nobody doubts that President’s Trump attractive unpredictability has given Starmer an extensive headache.

Part of the President’s game is to catch enemies and friends alike off-guard, amplifying its effectiveness as a deterrent. The reactionary nature of Starmer and his compatriots means that every movement in Trumpian foreign policy that is designed to shock a specific nation or continent into action is taken as an immovable policy position. This neglects the way in which Trump conducts his international business.

It is vital to remember that Ukraine, like Israel, is fighting the war to preserve the Western democratic ideals that our nation holds dear. The bravery and strength of the Ukrainian people in the face of tyranny is unquestionable. This does not render the attempt to secure peace between Russia and Ukraine irrelevant.

Starmer finds himself in a bind: fully endorsing Ukraine’s defence and managing a sceptical American administration to that aim. The leverage mechanisms in which President Trump has exercised may be crude, but the desired effect is starting to become apparent. The momentary aid suspension is forcing Zelensky to the table to sign a minerals deal that would be economically beneficial for his country, whilst essentially providing the United States with a stake in the nation’s future. Thankfully, he is embracing the calls for peace and is pouring praise over the American state’s efforts towards this.

This immensely delicate situation necessitates that our Prime Minister not engage in political posturing. He is standing on the precipice of an increasingly perilous world. I am hesitant, therefore, to join the seemingly universal praise of Starmer’s ‘leadership’ over the course of this episode.

For a man who enjoys lambasting his opponents for not working in the ‘national interest’, he appears to be falling into his own trap. Starmer littered his meeting in the White House last week with missteps. He praised the reintroduction of the Churchill bust into the Oval Office, after kneeling for the organisation that promoted the lie that he was a racist in need of defacing. His weaponisation of the King’s State Visit offer for political purposes to woo Trump was something that wrongfully escaped scrutiny.

Starmer and his government do not have the ability to strike confidence into the nation. He is not a suitable war leader, let alone a Churchill or Thatcher. This is because the government, to use our leader’s phrase, is staffed with student politicians who simplify issues into black and white. We see this in the Family Farms Tax, where the government view maintaining food security – which is a key component of national security – as of secondary importance to ideologically targeting so-called ‘rich’ farmers.

This approach is miserable wherever applied. All of places, national security should not face this disgusting treatment. The world is changing. The time for seriousness is now.

Western nations are all waking up to this fact. It’s about time Starmer did the same.