Sir Keir Starmer has described his first official visit to Ireland as a “moment for reset” in relations between the UK and its closest neighbour.
He met Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris at Farmleigh House, the official state guest house, in Dublin on Saturday – becoming the first British prime minister to visit the Republic of Ireland in five years.
It comes after Mr Harris became the first international leader hosted by Sir Keir after he entered Downing Street following Labour’s election victory in July.
During a roundtable in the afternoon, the two leaders discussed the framework for an annual trade and cooperation summit between Ireland and the UK.
They said they had agreed the themes and structure of the first summit in March 2025, to be held every year thereafter.
“There’s a huge amount of bilateral trade between our countries. That was why this is such an important relationship,” Sir Keir said.
“Our economy, our markets, are intertwined and have been for a very long time. So, the foundation upon which we base this reset, I think, is strong.”
Image: The two leaders walk in the grounds of Farmleigh House, the official Irish state guest house in Dublin. Pic: PA
The Irish premier described the prime minister’s visit as a “really great honour”, adding that the time they had spent together so far was “really appreciated”.
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The two men “both wish to really place British-Irish relations on a new path”, he said.
Sir Keir replied: “It’s a pleasure to be here, to have this opportunity that we will take to renew the friendship between our two countries. That reset, I think, can be meaningful, it can be deep.”
Top of the agenda on his first visit as prime minister was trade across the Irish Sea – a relationship worth €100bn (£84bn) a year that makes up thousands of jobs.
Image: The prime minister signs the official Irish state guest book in Dublin. Pic: PA
Sir Keir said he is also seeking a “wider EU reset” with other leaders in the bloc, and wants a “closer relationship with the EU”, following on from recent visits to Berlin and Paris.
He talked about the importance of “reducing the friction” between UK and Irish businesses post-Brexit and that of cooperation on defence and security.
The international conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East will likely be discussed too – as protesters against UK arms sales to Israel gathered in Dublin city centre on Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the two leaders will have meetings with various Irish businesses over the weekend – including Accenture, Keelings, and Primark, to encourage further trade and investment.
Football shirt swap ahead of Ireland game
Back at Farmleigh House, nine-year-old Freddie Munnelly, who received medical treatment in the UK, presented the two leaders with Irish and English football scarves.
The prime minister was also given an Irish football shirt with his name on it – while the Taoiseach was presented with an England jersey bearing his name.
Image: Sir Keir Starmer and Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris exchange football shirts in Dublin on Saturday. Pic: PA
The two men will attend the England v Ireland England Nations League football match at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin this evening.
Sir Keir commented: “It will make an appearance in my nine-a-side. This will be proudly worn in north London before too long.”
After shouts of “can we have Declan Rice back?” from a member of the public, Sir Keir replied: “No, absolutely not. He is fantastic.”
Four more arrests have been made by French police investigating the Louvre museum heist.
Two men and two women from the Parisregion were detained on Tuesday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.
Ms Beccuau’s statement did not say what role the quartet are suspected of having played in the robbery. The two men are aged 38 and 39, and the two women are aged 31 and 40.
They are being interrogated by police, who can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.
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2:36
Louvre: How ‘heist of the century’ unfolded
The latest arrests come after investigating magistrates filed preliminary charges against three men and one woman who were arrested last month.
The haul – which included a diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense, and Empress Eugenie’s pearl and diamond tiara – has not been recovered.
The heist was pulled off in mere minutes last month – and took place while the Louvre was open to visitors, raising doubts over the credibility of the world’s most-visited museum as a guardian for its priceless works.
On Sunday 19 October, two men used a stolen furniture lift to access the second floor Galerie d’Apollon.
They then cracked open display cases with angle grinders before escaping with their loot and fleeing on the back of two scooters driven by accomplices.
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Moment thieves escape Louvre in jewel heist
The Paris prosecutor previously said the robbery appeared to be the work of small-time criminals rather than professional gangsters.
Speaking shortly after the heist, art detective Arthur Brand told Sky News that detectives faced a “race against time” to recover the stolen treasure.
“These crown jewels are so famous, you just cannot sell them,” Mr Brand said. “The only thing they can do is melt the silver and gold down, dismantle the diamonds, try to cut them. That’s the way they will probably disappear forever.
“They [the police] have a week. If they catch the thieves, the stuff might still be there. If it takes longer, the loot is probably gone and dismantled. It’s a race against time.”
Washington woke up this morning to a flurry of developments on Ukraine.
It was the middle of the night in DC when a tweet dropped from Ukraine’s national security advisor, Rustem Umerov.
He said that the US and Ukraine had reached a “common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”
He added that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would travel to America “at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump”.
By sunrise in Washington, a US official was using similar but not identical language to frame progress.
The official, speaking anonymously to US media, said that Ukraine had “agreed” to Trump’s peace proposal “with some minor details to be worked out”.
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In parallel, it’s emerged that talks have been taking place in Abu Dhabi. The Americans claim to have met both Russian and Ukrainian officials there, though the Russians have not confirmed attendance.
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Peace deal ‘agreement’: What we know
“I have nothing to say. We are following the media reports,” Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, told Russian state media.
Trump is due to travel to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago tonight, where he will remain until Sunday.
We know the plan has been changed from its original form, but it’s clear that Zelenskyy wants to be seen to agree to something quickly – that would go down well with President Trump.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid distribution group, has said it will permanently cease operations.
Set up as an alternative to United Nations aid programmes in May, GHF’s executive director John Acree said on Monday that it “succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans”.
The foundation had already closed down aid distribution sites after US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan was agreed by Hamasand Israelin October.
The GHF which began operations in Gazaafter an Israeli blockade of food deliveries, lasting nearly three months, was criticised by Palestinians, aid workers and health officials who said it forced people to risk their lives to reach the sites.
Image: File pic: Reuters
According to witnesses and videos posted to social media, Israeli soldiers repeatedly opened fire at the sites, killing hundreds. The IDF denied this, saying it only fired warning shots as a crowd-control measure or if its troops were in danger.
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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
MSF – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said in a report in August that the GHF sites “morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,” and described scenes there as “orchestrated killing”.
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‘We are proud,’ says GHF director
Mr Acree said in a statement through the GHF’s website that “from the outset, GHF’s goal was to meet an urgent need” and to hand over a successful aid operation to “the broader international community”.
The GHF would hand over its work to the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire.
“We are winding down our operations as we have succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans,” Mr Acree said.
Image: File pic: Reuters
The GHF director added: “At a critical juncture, we are proud to have been the only aid operation that reliably and safely provided free meals directly to Palestinian people in Gaza, at scale and without diversion.
“From our very first day of operations, our mission was singular: feed civilians in desperate need. We built a new model that worked, saved lives, and restored dignity to civilians in Gaza.”
According to the GHF website, the group distributed more than three million food boxes, totalling 187 million meals, and supplied 1.1 million packs of Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSF) for malnourished children.
In a statement, Hamas welcomed the closure of GHF and accused it of being a project that “engineered starvation” in partnership with Israel.
A Hamas spokesperson said: “Since its entry into the Gaza Strip, this foundation was part of the occupation’s security system, which adopted distribution mechanisms entirely disconnected from humanitarian principles, and created dangerous and degrading conditions for the dignity of the starving Palestinian people during their attempts to obtain a piece of bread, resulting in the killing and injury of thousands, through sniper operations and deliberate killing.”
They also called on international legal bodies to hold “this foundation and its officers accountable for their crimes against our people”.
US state department deputy spokesperson Tommy Piggot also said on X that the aid group “shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners”.
“GHF’s model, in which Hamas could no longer loot and profit from stealing aid, played a huge role in getting Hamas to the table and achieving a ceasefire,” he added.