Starmer’s next first-time challenge is a test of his worldview – but he’s quietly building a reliable team
Sir Keir Starmer faces another first-time challenge this week.
Still just months into the job, the prime minister will be delivering his first speech to the annual Lord Mayor’s Banquet in the City of London on Monday.
It will be a rare chance to see the Labour leader in white tie and tailcoat in the glistening historical setting of Guildhall, surrounded by the rich and powerful. Unless of course, Sir Keir follows his Labour predecessor Gordon Brown and tries to dress down.
Gordon Brown speaking at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at Mansion House in London in 2007. Pic: Reuters
Sir Keir is bound to dwell on the economy, the poor inheritance he believes he has received from the Conservatives, and his determination to stay the course set in the recent budget.
By convention, however, the prime minister’s Guildhall speech focuses on foreign policy and Britain’s place in the world.
The grandees in the dining hall, and the waiting world beyond it, will be listening out for how Sir Keir’s thoughts are shaping up since his election victory and after the crash course in international diplomacy he has undertaken in very uncertain times.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in Samoa in October. Pic: PA
Foreign affairs matter for PMs – and the UK
The UK did “take back control” with the Brexit referendum vote. This country is now an independent entity outside the big power blocks of the United States, the European Union, China and Russia, and unaffiliated with the rest of the world in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.
The UK must try to navigate a successful future for itself at a time when there is a widespread populist impulse to put national interests first ahead of any multinational obligations.
The new prime minister has been an easy target for all the time he has spent travelling abroad. The critics who suggest he should have stayed at home need to say which of the official engagements he should have cancelled.
Do they really think he should have abandoned the UK’s place at the top table for meetings of the United Nations, the G7 summit of Western democracies, the G20 gathering of the world’s biggest economies or COP29 on climate change?
Are they saying he wasted his time forging inaugural bilateral contacts with key allies including presidents like Macron, Biden, Trump, Zelenskyy, and Scholz.
Keir Starmer on the plane to the G20 summit. Pic: PA
Debutant prime ministers are often surprised by the amount of time they have to spend on foreign affairs. As they become more experienced, most of them realise it is one of the most important aspects of heading a government.
Diplomacy also has attractions for them personally. It is an area of policy where they deal with equals, other foreign leaders, and can take decisions – at the most extreme staying in and out of wars – without having to manoeuvre around colleagues and parliament at home.
Most cabinet ministers and MPs are rightly preoccupied with domestic issues such as health, education and welfare. This leaves a prime minister and their advisers plenty of leeway for exercising statecraft.
Envoys matter almost as much as the top job
The personal relationships prime ministers and their envoys develop with their foreign counterparts can have a significant impact on the national interest.
Non-elected officials or representatives, operating in so-called “back channels”, are likely to matter more and have more direct influence than in other policy areas.
Consuelo Thiers, a political psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, studies leadership approaches to international relations.
She believes: “Starmer’s personality is characterised by a high belief in his ability to control events, a strong need for power, and a complex approach to decision-making.”
So far he has moved deliberatively, gaining experience and avoiding black-and-white positions. He is also slowly assembling a team of advisers which seems to hark back to the New Labour government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
The top appointment is Jonathan Powell as national security adviser. Powell was Tony Blair’s chief of staff throughout his decade in power. He was a risk-taking participant in the backchannels which resulted in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Before that, he was a career British diplomat, serving in Washington DC.
Former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and Labour adviser Jonathan Powell. Pic: PA
Starmer previously hired Powell on a one-off basis to negotiate a settlement over the future of the Chagos Islands. That agreement handed sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius but kept access for 99 years to the Diego Garcia military base for US forces.
But the deal is now in danger of unravelling because of elections in the US and Mauritius. Weeks before he officially starts being national security adviser, Powell is shuttling between capitals again trying to find a compromise.
Marco Rubio, the US president-elect’s nominee for secretary of state, has said the arrangement would “provide an opportunity for communist China to gain valuable intelligence on our naval support facility”.
Meanwhile, the new Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam also wants to review the deal.
The Islands will only be the first example of the big power rivalries between US and Chinese interests which Powell will have to grapple with on Starmer’s behalf.
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The UK’s other essential relationship is with Europe.
Starmer has reaffirmed that there will be no return to freedom of movement, the single market or a customs union with the EU.
But, unlike his Conservative predecessors, he has energetically pursued warmed relations with European and EU leaders.
Rishi Sunak at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in November 2023 – during happier times when he was prime minister. Pic: Reuters
Where the Conservatives set up a Department for Exiting the EU, Starmer has established an EU directorate in the Cabinet Office, separate from the Foreign Office, under the minister Nick Thomas-Symonds.
The government is now advertising for a senior official to reset relations with Brussels. Michael Ellam, who moved with Gordon Brown from the Treasury to Number 10, is expected to get the job, according to The Financial Times. Ellam is a veteran heavyweight civil servant with many connections in the EU having worked as chair of the EU financial services committee during the UK’s membership.
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Olly Robbins and Antonia Romeo, the two front runners to become the next cabinet secretary, also both have significant foreign policy experience, in Brussels and New York respectively, although Starmer may choose one of the two other domestic-focussed civil servants from the four-person shortlist.
His newly appointed director of policy in Downing Street is Liz Lloyd. She was Powell’s deputy in the Blair government and has since worked as an international investor and banker in Africa.
It’s less likely, but some have been advising the prime minister to take up Nigel Farage’s offer to be a linkman to the Donald Trump administration.
As he looks out across the candelabras of Guildhall on Monday, Sir Keir Starmer may only hint at his worldview in the reassuring knowledge that he is quietly putting together a reliable team who will watch his back and look out for the national interest in the unavoidable backchannels of diplomacy.
World
‘At least 59 killed’ in Gaza after Israeli military opens fire near aid centre and carries out strikes
At least 59 Palestinians have reportedly been killed after the Israeli military opened fire near an aid centre in Gaza and carried out strikes across the territory.
The Red Cross, which operates a field hospital in Rafah, said 25 people were “declared dead upon arrival” and “six more died after admittance” following gunfire near an aid distribution centre in the southern Gazan city.
The humanitarian organisation added that it also received 132 patients “suffering from weapon-related injuries” after the incident.
The Red Cross said: “The overwhelming majority of these patients sustained gunshot wounds, and all responsive individuals reported they were attempting to access food distribution sites.”
The organisation said the number of deaths marks the hospital’s “largest influx of fatalities” since it began operations in May last year.
The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.
It said in a statement: “Earlier today, several suspects were identified approaching IDF troops operating in the Rafah area, posing a threat to the troops, hundreds of metres from the aid distribution site.
“IDF troops operated in order to prevent the suspects from approaching them and fired warning shots.”
Palestinians mourn a loved one following the incident near the aid centre. Pic: Reuters
Mother’s despair over shooting
Somia Alshaar told Sky News her 17-year-old son Nasir was shot dead while visiting the aid centre after she told him not to go.
She said: “He went to get us tahini so we could eat.
“He went to get flour. He told me ‘mama, we don’t have tahini. Today I’ll bring you flour. Even if it kills me, I will get you flour’.
“He left the house and didn’t return. They told me at the hospital: your son…’Oh God, oh Lord’.”
Asked where her son was shot, she replied: “In the chest. Yes, in the chest.”
Somia Alshaar, pictured with her daughter, says her son was shot dead. Pic: Reuters
‘A policy of mass murder’
Hassan Omran, a paramedic with Gaza’s ministry of health, told Sky News after the incident that humanitarian aid centres in Gaza are now “centres of mass death”.
Speaking in Khan Younis, he said: “Today, there were more than 150 injuries and more than 20 martyrs at the aid distribution centres… the Israeli occupation deliberately kills and commits genocide. The Israeli occupation is carrying out a policy of mass murder.
“They call people to come get their daily food, and then, when citizens arrive at these centres, they are killed in cold blood.
“All the victims have gunshot wounds to the head and chest, meaning the enemy is committing these crimes deliberately.”
Israel has rejected genocide accusations and denies targeting civilians.
Two boys mourn their brother at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Pic: Reuters
‘Lies being peddled’
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the controversial US and Israeli-backed group which operates the distribution centre near Rafah, said: “Hamas is claiming there was violence at our aid distribution sites today. False.
“Once again, there were no incidents at or in the immediate vicinity of our sites.
“But that’s not stopping some from spreading the lies being peddled by ‘officials’ at the Hamas-controlled Nasser Hospital.”
The Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah has recorded more than 250 fatalities and treated more than 3,400 “weapon-wounded patients” since new food distribution sites were set up in Gaza on 27 May.
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Palestinians inspect the wreckage after an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah. Pic: AP
It comes after four children and two women were among at least 13 people who died in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, after Israeli strikes pounded the area starting late on Friday, officials in Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the territory said.
Fifteen others died in Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not responded to a request for comment on the reported deaths.
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Israeli has been carrying out attacks in Gaza since Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages on 7 October 2023.
Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.
But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough.
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The latest fatalities in Gaza comes as a 20-year-old Palestinian-American man was beaten to death by settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian Health ministry said.
Sayafollah Musallet, also known as Saif, was killed during a confrontation between Palestinians and settlers in Sinjil, north of Ramallah, the ministry said.
A second man, Hussein Al-Shalabi, 23, died after being shot in the chest.
Mr Musallet’s family, from Tampa Florida, has called on the US State Department to lead an “immediate investigation”.
A State Department spokesperson said it was aware of the incident but it had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones” of the reported victim.
The Israeli military said the confrontation broke out after Palestinians threw rocks at Israelis, lightly injuring them.
As investigators continue to piece together the full picture, early findings of the Air India crash are pointing towards a critical area of concern — the aircraft’s fuel control switches.
The flight, bound for London Gatwick, crashed just moments after taking off from Ahmedabad airport on 12 June, killing all but one of the 242 people on board the plane and at least 19 on the ground.
According to the preliminary report by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), the two engine fuel control switches on the plane were moved from the “RUN” to “CUTOFF” position.
These switches control fuel flow to the engines and should only be used when the aircraft is on ground, first to start the engines before a flight and later to shut them down at the gate.
They are designed so they’re unlikely to be changed accidentally, pointing to possible human error on the Air India flight.
The findings include the final conversation between the pilots and show there was confusion in the cockpit as well.
When one pilot asked the other why he cut off the fuel, he responded to say he did not do so.
The Air India plane before the crash. Pic: Takagi
Moments later, a Mayday call was made from the cockpit, but the plane could not regain power quickly enough and plummeted to the ground.
Captain Amit Singh, founder of Safety Matters Foundation, an organisation dedicated to aviation safety, told Sky News: “This exchange indicates that the engine shutdowns were uncommanded.
“However, the report does not identify the cause – whether it was crew error, mechanical malfunction, or electronic failure.”
Previous warning of ‘possible fuel switch issue’
“The Boeing 787 uses spring-loaded locking mechanisms on its fuel control switches to prevent accidental movement,” Mr Singh explained.
But a previous bulletin from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) “warned that these switches might be installed with the locking feature disengaged,” he said.
This could “make them susceptible to unintended movement due to vibration, contact, or quadrant flex”, he added.
The plane’s tail lodged in a building. Pic: Reuters
Speaking to Sky News, aviation expert Terry Tozner said: “The take-off was normal, the aircraft rotated at the correct speed left the ground and almost immediately, the cut-off switches were selected to off, one then two.
“But nobody has said with any clarity whether or not the latch mechanisms worked okay on this particular aircraft. So we can only assume that they were in normal working order.”
In India, there has been a backlash over the findings, with some saying the report points to pilot error without much information and almost dismisses the possibility of a mechanical or electric failure.
Indian government responds
India’s civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu has been quick to respond, saying: “We care for the welfare and the wellbeing of pilots so let’s not jump to any conclusions at this stage, let us wait for the final report.
“I believe we have the most wonderful workforce of pilots and crew in the whole world.”
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India plane crash survivor carries brother’s coffin
Both pilots were experienced, with around 19,000 flying hours between them, including more than 9,000 on Boeing 787s.
The report says the aircraft maintenance checks were on schedule and that there are no signs of fuel contamination or a bird strike.
So far, no safety recommendations have been issued to Boeing or General Electric, the engine manufacturers.
Concern over destroyed flight recorder
Mr Singh said “the survivability of the flight recorders also raises concern”.
The plane’s rear flight recorder, designed to withstand impact forces of 3,400 Gs and temperatures of 1,100C for 60 minutes, “was damaged beyond recovery”.
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“The Ram Air Turbine (RAT), which deploys automatically when both engines fail and power drops below a threshold, was observed as deployed in CCTV footage when the aircraft was approximately 60ft above ground level,” Mr Singh said.
“This suggests that the dual engine failure likely occurred before the official timestamp of 08:08:42 UTC, implying a possible discrepancy.”
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting the crash site. Pic: X/AP
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Mr Singh said it was also “of particular note” that the plane’s emergency locator transmitter (ELT) did not send any signal after the crash.
“Was the ELT damaged, unarmed, mis-wired, or malfunctioning?” he said.
The report has generated more questions than answers on topics including human error, power source failures and mechanical or electrical malfunction.
The final report is expected to take a year. Meanwhile, families grapple with the unimaginable loss of loved ones in one of the worst disasters in India’s aviation history.
Donald Trump has announced he will impose a 30% tariff on imports from the European Union from 1 August.
The tariffs could make everything from French cheese and Italian leather goods to German electronics and Spanish pharmaceuticals more expensive in the US.
Mr Trump has also imposed a 30% tariff on goods from Mexico, according to a post from his Truth Social account.
Announcing the moves in separate letters on the account, the president said the US trade deficit was a national security threat.
In his letter to the EU, he wrote: “We have had years to discuss our trading relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, trade Deficits, engendered by your tariff, and non-Tariff, policies, and trade barriers.
“Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from reciprocal.”
In his letter to Mexico, Mr Trump said he did not think the country had done enough to stop the US from turning into a “narco-trafficking playground”.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said today that the EU could adopt “proportionate countermeasures” if the US proceeds with imposing the 30% tariff.
Ms von der Leyen, who heads the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement that the bloc remained ready “to continue working towards an agreement by Aug 1”.
“Few economies in the world match the European Union’s level of openness and adherence to fair trading practices,” she continued.
“We will take all necessary steps to safeguard EU interests, including the adoption of proportionate countermeasures if required.”
Ms von der Leyen has also said imposing tariffs on EU exports would “disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains”.
Meanwhile, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on the X social media platform that Mr Trump’s announcement was “very concerning and not the way forward”.
He added: “The European Commission can count on our full support. As the EU we must remain united and resolute in pursuing an outcome with the United States that is mutually beneficial.”
Mexico’s economy ministry said a bilateral working group aims to reach an alternative to the 30% US tariffs before they are due to take effect.
The country was informed by the US that it would receive a letter about the tariffs, the ministry’s statement said, adding that Mexico was negotiating.
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Trump’s tariff threats and delays
On his so-called “liberation day” in April, Mr Trump unleashed “reciprocal tariffs” on many of America’s trade partners.
The US president said he was targeting countries with which America has a trade imbalance.
However, since then he’s backed down in a spiralling tit-for-tat tariff face-off with China, and struck a deal with the UK.
The US imposed a 20% tariff on imported goods from the EU in April but it was later paused and the bloc has since been paying a baseline tariff of 10% on goods it exports to the US.
In May, while the US and EU where holding trade negotiations, Mr Trump threated to impose a 50% tariff on the bloc as talks didn’t progress as he would have liked.
However, he later announced he was delaying the imposition of that tariff while negotiations over a trade deal took place.
As of earlier this week, the EU’s executive commission, which handles trade issues for the bloc’s 27-member nations, said its leaders were still hoping to strike a trade deal with the Trump administration.
Without one, the EU said it was prepared to retaliate with tariffs on hundreds of American products, ranging from beef and auto parts to beer and Boeing airplanes.
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