In the run-up to last year’s general election, Sir Keir Starmer was fond of telling voters that his father was a toolmaker. Well, now his son has adopted the role of peacemaker, and, as it happens, bridge-builder between America and Europe to resolve the latest crisis over Ukraine.
Sir Keir’s London summit of European leaders, aimed at “Securing our Future”, is a testament both to the influence and goodwill Britain still enjoys with its partners and neighbours, and to the prime minister’s personal standing. It is, as Sir Keir declares, a “once in a generation” moment for European security. The “optics” of the meeting powerfully transmitted an image of Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine firmly in the European family of free nations, surrounded by friends, with real and metaphorical hugs. The peace proposal emerging from the conference will be presented to President Trump on behalf of Ukraine and its European allies – a united front. Even if the US drops its support, Europe and others will do their utmost to sustain Ukraine.
Thus, under difficult circumstances, the framework for a peace plan created by Europeans for Europeans is being created – a crucial initiative and one that should give fresh momentum after the debacle at the White House on Friday. That disgraceful spectacle gave the impetus to this renewed push for European unity. During his BBC interview with Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir explained that his reaction at watching the scenes in the Oval Office on Friday – which resembled a scene from the mafia film Goodfellas – was to “roll my sleeves up” and “take to the phones”. Labouring with great speed at the lathe of international peace, the prime minister made a first attempt at repairing what was left of the Trump-Zelensky relationship, to convene meetings with President Zelensky and other European leaders, and to compose the bare bones of a peace plan. This he has done.
It is indeed a workmanlike, logical, practical proposal backed by a coalition, potentially stretching from Canada to Turkey, with associated backing from Nato and the European Union. It is designed to impress Mr Trump and to attract his support for some kind of security guarantee for Ukraine and, pointedly, “his” own Ukraine-Russia deal.
Given, as a matter of hard reality, that the United States is able, but no longer committed to, win the war for Ukraine (to put it mildly), and that Europe is in any case unable to deliver such an outcome, then some sort of painful compromise is inevitable. The Starmer plan, we may say, makes the best of a bad job, and at least offers the possibility of the remaining areas of independent and sovereign Ukraine, perhaps with some restitution of lost territory, surviving, enjoying peace and becoming more integrated with the European Union, as Kyiv desires.
But, as the prime minister also stresses, it must be a lasting peace, and not some sort of armistice that will allow President Putin to rearm, regroup and capitalise on a relaxation of sanctions to rebuild his military-industrial machine. The peace that comes now cannot facilitate a still more brutal future conflict after which Ukraine will be extirpated. Sir Keir insists that President Trump shares that goal. We shall see.
The Starmer plan is well constructed as a robust framework for peace. The first element is for a strong Ukraine “to fight on if necessary, to be in a position of strength to negotiate”. With that threat of a prolonged conflict, the Kremlin, under pressure from a weakening economy and heavy battlefield losses, should be more willing to agree a suitable “peace line”. The second element is that such a line has to be defended with a formidable European-based security guarantee. Bypassing to some extent existing Nato and EU structures, this would have to comprise a “coalition of the willing”, as Sir Keir calls it, of nations prepared to put troops into Ukraine or otherwise support an “all for one and one for all” pledge to Ukraine.
The third and most challenging part of the prime minister’s project is to coax President Trump into what’s styled an “American backstop”. This is necessarily vague at the moment but would not involve the physical presence of American ground forces. The Ukraine-US minerals deal that was supposed to be concluded on Friday should create an American “vital interest” in the region and the personal involvement of Mr Trump. In Mr Trump’s terms, the Russians will not launch a third Ukraine war because “they respect me”.
In this context, the stronger the European-based security guarantee to Ukraine, the better. Realistically, what can be prised out of an “America First”, neo-isolationist administration may be, in the end, fairly measly. But the more of the burden the Europeans show willing to take on, the more the Americans will feel they are not being taken for yet another expensive ride by the Europeans. And, of course, the more sure Ukraine and its European partners can be that Moscow will be deterred and, if needs be, repulsed in the event of any future incursions.
The British and the French, Europe’s two nuclear powers, are the most well-suited and willing to play such a forward-leaning role, but other nations represented at the London summit, such as Poland, are also willing to contribute what they can, even if positioning ground forces in Ukraine does not yet appeal to them. Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and the Baltic republics have all been prominent in supporting Ukraine, and will no doubt carry that forward.
Meanwhile, the prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, a woman of the right and ideologically aligned with Donald Trump yet deeply hostile to Vladimir Putin’s aggression, has seemingly been recruited to the coalition of the willing. She, too, has a special relationship with the US president and will help bridge the new transatlantic diplomatic divide by getting a hearing in the White House. The heiress to a political tradition led by Mussolini is teaming up with a British ex-human rights lawyer to try and rescue the transatlantic alliance and bring peace to Europe. It’s worth a go.
Troubled at home, Sir Keir, after only eight months in office, is, thus far, proving a remarkable success in the international sphere, not least by boosting the UK’s defence budget. When the EU foreign affairs policy chief Kaja Kallas, a former Estonian premier, said the other day that “the free world needs a new leader” she may or may not have had Sir Keir Starmer in mind. But so far, almost by default, it is a role he has fallen into.
