By becoming prime minister two weeks ago, Keir Starmer inherited the host’s role at Thursday’s long-scheduled European Political Community summit in Oxfordshire. From Sir Keir’s perspective it was a perfect piece of timing and an extraordinary opportunity. It enabled this country’s new leader to show the voters at home and its allies abroad that Britain wishes to come in from the post-Brexit cold, taking its place at the heart of European responses to crises such as Ukraine.
The European Political Community is not a decision-making body like the European Union or the Nato alliance. It issues no summit communiques, deploys no armies and enforces no treaties or laws. But it is a pan-European body all the same, and more than 40 European heads of government came to Blenheim Palace. This therefore provided Sir Keir with an ideal platform to highlight what he described as Labour’s “reset” on Britain’s relations with Europe.
Sir Keir’s commitment to that general cause is hard to miss. Britain was a friend, a partner and “very much part of Europe”, he said. No recent Conservative predecessor would have spoken such heavily freighted post-Brexit words, even if they had wanted to do so. Nor could they have said with much honesty what Sir Keir then added, that he wants to take a practical view of relations, not one driven by ideology. Leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Germany’s Olaf Scholz did not disguise their approval.
On one issue Sir Keir went significantly further. Britain’s approach to the migration crisis would be handled “with humanity and with a profound respect for international law”, he said. And, he added, under Labour, Britain would “never withdraw” from the European convention on human rights. With those few remarks, Sir Keir has effectively repudiated more than a decade of shameful Conservative equivocation and antipathy towards the rule of law. It is an important moment.
The same is true of the priority that Sir Keir is showing towards relations with Ireland. The prime minister hosted the taoiseach, Simon Harris, on Wednesday evening and will visit Dublin in early September. He has given important assurances about respecting Ireland’s place as a guarantor of the Good Friday agreement on Northern Ireland, a treaty commitment that the Conservatives had ignored. Here too, a much-needed reset is already real.
Such gatherings allow Sir Keir to get to know fellow leaders. More importantly, they get Britain back into the diplomatic room, while skirting the detailed issue of UK relations with the EU. But revision of that relationship cannot be postponed indefinitely, especially after Thursday’s reappointment of Ursula von der Leyen as commission president for the coming five years. Labour is committed to improving trade, veterinary, security and youth exchange relations with the EU. Once the new commission is appointed, these goals must be a priority. Hopefully, both sides will turn the page on the past.
The domestic symbolism for Britain of this first re-engagement with Europe is overdue and powerful. But the relationship clearly needs to be more than symbolic. Sensibly, the agenda at Blenheim focused on what are indisputably big issues: Ukraine, migration and energy. Europe’s collective needs on all three are urgent and serious, especially as a Trump presidency looms again. It is cheering that Britain is back in the room. But it is even more important that this now begins to lead to results.
