Keir Starmer won’t have a ‘Falklands moment’ by kowtowing to Trump
Keir Starmer won’t have a ‘Falklands moment’ by kowtowing to Trump, no matter what his toadies in the government are saying.
It seems Labour frontbenchers are telling their client-media chums that “good prime ministers are made by great responses to huge events” – but cutting overseas aid in order to boost the defence budget is not a great response to Donald Trump’s posture-shift over Ukraine.
Trump has signalled that he is not keen for the United States to remain involved in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia; he wants to do a “deal” that will create lasting peace between the two sides and part of this seems to involve European countries stepping up to offer military aid to Ukraine, to prevent Russia from invading in the future.
Starmer’s response has been to cut the overseas aid budget in order to increase the defence budget to 2.5 per cent of national income by 2027.
This is not clever. As economist Simon Wren-Lewis points out in his latest Mainly Macro column, “Cutting foreign aid… is counterproductive because it reduces Europe’s influence overseas.”
It seems Trump is going to get his deal with Ukraine for the US to receive large amounts of that country’s rare-earth minerals, worth hundreds of billions of dollars. It seems this is because he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin will think a financial deal with Ukraine is more important than any defence treaty.
So it seems the US is pulling back from its Nato commitments, but is guaranteeing Ukraine’s safety via a direct deal between the two countries.
But where will the US military go? Does Trump have another use for his troops?
Possibly: some have said he is concerned about the rise of China and wants to use his country’s military muscle to intimidate that rising eastern economy.
It seems likely to This Writer.
As for Starmer: by cutting the UK’s influence abroad along with its foreign aid – and impoverishing the UK’s population – to increase defence spending, he’s not acting anything like the way Margaret Thatcher did in the 1980s.
Her military adventure had a very specific objective – liberating the Falkland Islands; his does not – in fact he has been criticised because his objective is far from clear.
So he is weakening the UK in order to allow the United States an opportunity – possibly – to threaten China.
Is that the work of a statesman – or a catspaw?
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