“If Burnham is not prepared to change course, then he must be met with stiff resistance from the movement for global peace and justice.”
By Conor Bollins
Labour’s next Prime Minister will assume office at a moment of profound global crisis. Keir Starmer’s departure from Downing Street must be accompanied by a foreign policy reset, if his successor is to have any hope of playing a more constructive role on the world stage.
Above all, Starmer will be remembered for his government’s complicity in genocide. Since October 2023, according to the most conservative estimates, over 75,000 individuals have died as a result of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. People around the world have borne witness to the Israeli Defence Force’s massacre of Palestinian men, women, and children. As has frequently been said, this has been the first livestreamed genocide due to new smartphone technologies. As this suggests, there is overwhelming evidence that war crimes and ethnic cleansing have taken place in both Gaza and the West Bank. This evidence is currently being assessed by the International Court of Justice, as part of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. Despite this, Starmer’s government has sought to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel and cracked down on legitimate protest against the genocide. Worse still, by allowing hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of weapons to be exported to Israel, Starmer’s government has directly facilitated the slaughter that has taken place.
Whilst these horrors cannot be undone, it is not too late to save lives. At its core, Israel is a settler-colonial state. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, has shown no signs of wishing to halt the conquest and occupation of further territories. The incoming Prime Minister of the UK must, finally, heed the call of the mass Palestine solidarity movement in the UK and impose wide-ranging sanctions on Israel. This must include an end to all trade with the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the implementation of a full arms embargo.
The complicity of European and North American states in Israel’s genocide is symptomatic of a wider breakdown in respect for international law, basic humanitarian principles, and common decency. Whilst both Joe Biden and Donald Trump should be held equally culpable for Israel’s crimes, it is the current President of the US who has most aggressively abandoned any pretence of adherence to the idea of a ‘rules-based international order’. Since the start of this year alone, Trump has illegally attacked Venezuela, threatened to annex Greenland, waged an illegal war against Iran, intensified the blockade of Cuba, and broken vital commitments to nuclear disarmament.
In this context, Zack Polanski, as leader of the Greens, has sensibly suggested that the UK should begin charting an international course that is less in hock to US foreign policy priorities and more aligned with the interests of the British people. This has opened up a space to the left of Labour, which will continue to erode the party’s electoral coalition if there is not a serious change of direction. Polanski also advocated a review of whether US forces should be allowed to continue using military bases on UK soil. This would effectively signal a withdrawal from NATO, the military alliance that has enabled US dominance over Europe since its creation at the start of the Cold War.
Polanski’s message has resonated with the British public because Trump’s actions this year have been perceived as erratic, unpredictable and dangerous. The attack in January on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro clearly violated the principles of sovereign equality and the territorial integrity of states that were enshrined in the UN Charter of 1945. The charges of ‘narco-terrorism’ that have been brought against Maduro by the US Department of Justice are entirely untrue. The subsequent, illegal US-Israeli strikes on Iran, between February and June, were similarly undertaken on false pretexts. It was deeply dishonest and hypocritical for the US and Israel, two heavily armed nuclear powers, to claim that they were trying to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. There was no evidence provided from the International Atomic Energy Association or even US Intelligence to support Trump and Netanyahu’s false claims. The responsibility for the destabilisation and violence that has since spread across West Asia, especially in Lebanon, must be put squarely at the feet of Trump and Netanyahu.
Throughout these events, Starmer continued to demonstrate utter subservience to the US war machine. Elected as Labour Leader on the promise of ‘no illegal wars’ and vaunted as a human rights lawyer, Starmer failed to condemn Trump’s actions in Venezuela or to provide sufficient opposition to the bombing of civilians in Iran. Although Starmer publicly refused to commit UK forces to the attack on Iran, he allowed the US to continue using RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire as a launchpad for bombing runs. As RAF Fairford contains the only airstrip long enough to accommodate the US Air Force’s B-52 bombers, this means that UK bases may have provided the infrastructure needed to carry out US atrocities. This may even have included the strike on the Minab Girls’ School, which killed 150 people.
The attacks on Iran have been deeply unpopular. Polls show that the majority of British people are opposed to allowing the US to use UK bases in this way. Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz, as a defensive manoeuvre in response to US-Israeli aggression, led to a drastic increase in oil prices. The effects of the resultant energy crisis are still yet to fully reverberate around the world. At a time when cost-of-living pressures are already exceptionally intense, individuals and families in the UK realise that this means the war on Iran was completely contrary to their own interests. It would be sensible for the next Prime Minister to heed the public’s warning about not continuing to support the military adventures of rogue states like the US.
The final blow to Starmer’s premiership was the internal government struggle over its plans to increase military spending. Starmer’s initial commitment to increase military spending to 5 per cent of GDP by the end of 2035 was a capitulation to Trump’s demands of NATO states to pour money into his global war drive. Earlier this month, John Healey resigned as Starmer’s Defence Secretary over claims that the Treasury had denied the level of funding he had expected from the as-yet unpublished Defence Investment Plan. By the time of Healey’s resignation, Starmer’s authority had already been drained away by Labour’s disastrous results in the recent local elections. So, it is perfectly plausible that Healey’s move was orchestrated so as to exert pressure on Starmer’s successor. In any case, the ensuing statements from senior military figures give some indication as to the extent of the pro-rearmament lobbying likely to be taking place behind the scenes.
The huge increases of military expenditure currently sweeping Europe are reminiscent of the rearmament and escalation of geopolitical tensions that preceded the First and Second World Wars. As the world seems to have forgotten, however, the outbreak of global warfare today would inevitably be one that would put nuclear-armed powers in direct confrontation with one another. With the situation in Ukraine not only still ongoing but actually worsening, there is a growing risk that nuclear war will break out between Russia and NATO. The collapse of the New START Treaty between Russia and the US in February, which sought to limit the number of nuclear warheads owned by the two most heavily armed nuclear states, has essentially initiated a new global arms race.
Under Starmer, the UK has only further contributed to these risks. This has included allowing the US to site nuclear weapons at RAF Lakenheath, without offering any parliamentary scrutiny or debate, and pledging to invest in a new generation of nuclear-capable F-35 jets. The cost of these jets, each of which would hold weapons with three times the destructive power of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, has been estimated at £12.5 billion. The programme would also likely put the UK in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the UK signed in 1968.
What the UK needs is a Prime Minister who outlines a foreign policy that is rooted in respect for life and tackling the existential threats to humanity linked to rising global temperatures, natural disasters caused by climate change, and widespread global poverty. Ideally, this would mean breaking with the UK’s disastrous vassalage to the US. As a bare minimum, the next Prime Minister must learn from Starmer’s mistakes and demonstrate a basic level of commitment to international law.
Unless there is an unforeseen reversal of fortune, Andy Burnham is set to replace Starmer as the next occupant of Number 10. So far, the noises coming from the Burnham camp with regard to foreign policy have not been promising. This is bizarrely self-defeating, considering the extent to which Starmer’s failures over Palestine have fragmented Labour’s electoral base. If Burnham is not prepared to change course, then he must be met with stiff resistance from the movement for global peace and justice.
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Very clear context and moral imperative to change course. Changing course as suggested & required would be such a political earthquake, 180 degree turn against Zionist control of the UK, and complicit Mainstream Media & institutions, including our unions, that it strikes one as a dream. Yet is as clear and simply put, as morally required, as the article states. Let it be so.