Daniel DePetris
When Keir Starmer, the Labour Party’s top politician, took the reins of 10 Downing St. in July 2024 after a resounding election victory over the Conservative Party, there was a sense that Britain was finally leaving behind its dysfunctional politics and economic stagnation. Starmer, a lawyer who used to be Britain’s top prosecutor, was all business and was ready to make the tough decisions the country required.
Two years later, Starmer has been booted out by his own members of Parliament, who feared an electoral thumping in the 2029 election if he retained the reins of power. Now, the United Kingdom has another bespectacled prime minister, a lifelong pol from the north of England who is saying all the right things.
“Many feel as though they’re still in decline, and they don’t have the ability to turn things around,” former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said in his inaugural speech on Monday. “And that’s why we will change politics, to make it more collaborative, more about problem-solving than point scoring.”
Good luck to him, because that’s what the last guy hinted at too.
Burnham steps into the prime minister’s residence with a U.K. that is, if not in decline, then at least stuck in a decadelong rut. Prime ministers have been recycled like water bottles (Burnham is the seventh in 10 years), the cost-of-living crisis has fueled populist political parties such as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, and the country’s traditional allies in the United States and Europe are questioning London’s ability to meet its own security commitments.
If Burnham had a choice, his tenure would be focused almost exclusively on domestic affairs. But the world doesn’t stop moving just because Britain is undergoing yet another change in government. The former mayor has already fielded a bunch of calls from European heads of state as well as President Donald Trump, congratulating him on his new job, and likely a number of them reminded Burnham about all the outstanding foreign policy issues he is inheriting. Starmer alleged he left 10 Downing St. with the U.K. in a better place. But if that’s the case — and many Brits would loudly protest this assertion — he also left his successor a bunch of problems he needs to manage.
The war in Ukraine, for instance, is ongoing. In fact, the war has expanded as the Ukrainian army uses its precision in drones to attack Russian oil pipelines and weapons factories deep in Russia. The aim is to strain Moscow’s supply lines and turn the Russian people against the war. The U.K., both under Conservative and Labour governments, has been one of Ukraine’s strongest allies in this endeavor, with London having committed more than $17 billion in military support to Kyiv since Russia’s 2022 invasion. The British have promised $4 billion in military aid to Ukraine every year until 2031. With Burnham in office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy can rest easy because the status quo will prevail at least until the next general election comes in three years.
Another item on the checklist: what to do about the U.K. defense budget. The U.K. has pledged to uphold NATO’s collective pledge for all member states to spend 5% of gross domestic product on the military by 2035 — a pledge reaffirmed during the NATO summit this month. However, when or even if the British can reach the target is a constant source of agitation for those who believe the austerity measures of yesteryear have completely gutted the once-powerful British military. They’re not exactly wrong: At approximately 74,000 soldiers, the British army is near the smallest it’s been. The Royal Navy stumbled out of the gate as the Iran war erupted in February, with the HMS Dragon’s deployment to the Middle East delayed due to maintenance issues.
Starmer insisted the U.K. defense budget was set to grow in the years ahead, yet those in the military pressing for more funds viewed his government’s incremental rises as nothing short of scandalous. U.K. Defense Minister John Healey resigned in protest last month. Burnham will therefore need to decide whether his predecessor’s spending plans should continue or be reworked. Burnham would need to figure out how to pay for any increase. Cuts to social services would cause political headaches for a man who’d prefer to avoid them in his first months on the job.
The issue isn’t going away; Washington expects the Burnham administration to meet NATO spending targets and isn’t shy about expressing those feelings.
And then there’s Trump, who loves the royal family but doesn’t care all too much for the men and women who make the U.K. run on a daily basis. Starmer chose to manage Trump by playing to his ego, a strategy that had its benefits as London signed a trade deal with Washington that was more preferential than what the European Union received from the White House. But it all fell apart on Feb. 28, when Trump embarked on a war in the Persian Gulf that the Brits never supported yet felt pressured to assist by permitting U.S. bombers to use British bases for defensive strikes. For Trump, this was too little, too late, and as the war went on, the insults he threw at Starmer got more and more personal. Starmer, too, became increasingly ornery with Trump as he pointed to the war as the prime reason why the British people had to reach deeper into their wallets to pay for transport and utilities.
As Trump begins striking Iranian bridges and flirts (again) with destroying Iran’s power plants, Burnham will have to determine whether base access will be maintained or restricted. Maintaining would cause some consternation among Labour’s left flank; restricting it would risk throwing the so-called special relationship between Washington and London into choppier waters.
Welcome to the hot seat, Andy.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Tribune.