No Easy Decisions: Foreign and Defence Policy Under the New UK Government

Foreign and defence policy barely figured in the British election campaign. Labour’s positions on key issues – NATO, nuclear weapons, defence spending, Ukraine – were hard to distinguish from those of the Conservatives. Unlike in the 2019 election, its credentials as a patriotic party were not seriously questioned. Labour was thus able to tap into a widespread public mood that, after 14 years of Tory rule, the time had come for change.

But from day one, the new government will face a host of new foreign and defence policy challenges. Next week, the new prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, will travel to Washington for a NATO summit. At that summit and in the coming months, the wars raging in the Middle East and Ukraine will demand his continued attention and leadership.

Most immediately, it is now likely that the war in Gaza will soon escalate into a wider regional conflict. The volume of cross-border shelling has already left large areas of northern Israel uninhabited. In response, Israel is preparing to launch a massive offensive, both air and ground, against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. If it does so, the death toll in Lebanon will likely be comparable to that of Gazans.

This sequence of events could be one of the first tests of the government’s ability to cope with a rapidly evolving crisis. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, with military forces deployed to the region and strong regional partnerships, the UK should play a significant role in efforts to broker a peace agreement and help prevent further escalation into a wider regional war.

Whether or not the situation in the Middle East worsens further, the highest foreign policy priority of the new government should be helping Ukraine survive and prevail. For the next four months, the presidents of the US and France will be focused on their own political survival, and their ability to shape world events will be correspondingly diminished. Britain, by contrast, has the most stable government of any major Western democracy. It therefore has the opportunity and the responsibility to help stabilize the ship of Western unity at a time of extraordinary political fluidity.