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.
