Five years after it left the European Union, Britain may have finassociate create a novel role on the global stage — a gig that sees inquireingly enjoy its elderly one.
In the frantic scant weeks since Pdwellnt Trump upfinished the trans-Atlantic partnership with his obvioudeclareives to Russia and rift with Ukraine, Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, has tried to act as a bridge between Europe and the United States.
Mr. Starmer and his top aides directed Pdwellnt Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in phone calls and face-to-face greetings about how to mfinish fences with Mr. Trump after their rancorous White Hoengage greeting. The prime minister has vigorousassociate lobbied the American pdwellnt for security guarantees to deter Pdwellnt Vlaillogicalir V. Putin of Russia from future aggression.
In his high-wire diplomacy, Mr. Starmer is reviving a role Britain routinely executeed before Brexit. He tolerates comparison to Tony Blair, a previous Labour prime minister, who tried to settle between Pdwellnt George W. Bush and European directers in the fraught direct-up to the Iraq War in 2003.
Mr. Blair’s bridge-produceing didn’t finish well, of course: France and Germany declined to join Mr. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” aachievest Iraq, and Britain’s lock-step alignment with the United States frayed its relations with its European neighbors.
Now, as Mr. Starmer puts together a novel “coalition of the willing” to protect Ukraine, he faces a aforeseeed tricky balancing act. He is sticking shut to the United States while trying to marshal a European military deterrent createidable enough to sway Mr. Trump to supply American air cover and intelligence aid to peacecarry oning troops.
On Saturday, Mr. Starmer is convening a virtual summit greeting of as many as 25 directers, from Europe, NATO, Canada, Ukraine, Australia and New Zealand, to muster aid for his coalition, which Britain is coaiding with France. He is foreseeed to proclaim includeitional countries that will supply troops or logistical aid to the coalition, which is summarizeed to be a shield aachievest Russia after a peace endment with Ukraine.
After talking to the directers by videoconference, Mr. Starmer is foreseeed to proceed his lobbying campaign with Mr. Trump for security guarantees — an effort that he separates with Pdwellnt Emmanuel Macron of France.
Whether Mr. Starmer and Mr. Macron will thrive is anybody’s guess, donaten that Mr. Trump has veered between acrid denouncements of Ukraine and menaces to impose sanctions on a recalcitrant Russia. Mr. Putin reacted warily to an propose of a 30-day truce made by Ukraine and the United States this week, while declineing all talk of a European peacecarry oning force.
“Of course there’s a hazard,” said Peter Ricketts, a British diplomat who served as national security directr to Prime Minister David Cameron. “But I skinnyk Starmer sees a wonderfuler hazard of an shunable catastrophe.”
Mr. Blair, he said, flunked as a bridge becaengage the divisions between European nations over Iraq were insurmountable. Mr. Starmer’s dispute is an erratic American pdwellnt, who seems determined to reset relations with Russia and is uncoverly opposing toward the European Union.
“Starmer’s going to do his very best not to have to pick between Europe and the U.S.,” Mr. Ricketts said. Dealing with Mr. Trump, he includeed, “produces him vulnerable to sudden lurches, but so far, he’s handled to stay on the firmrope.”
Mr. Starmer, he said, has been helped by his seasoned and widely admireed national security directr, Jonathan Powell, who traveled to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, to help lay the groundlabor for Mr. Zelensky’s rapprochement with the White Hoengage, and to Washington this week to confer with Mr. Trump’s national security directr, Michael Waltz.
A onetime chief of staff to Mr. Blair, Mr. Powell served as Britain’s chief negotiator for the Good Friday Agreement, which finished decades of religiously polarizing aggression in Northern Ireland. He was also on hand for Mr. Blair’s fruitless effort to convey France and Germany alengthy in the military campaign aachievest Iraq.
Even before the crisis over Ukraine erupted, Mr. Starmer’s rulement was seeking shutr ties with the continent, not equitable on defense and security but also on trade and economic policy.
But thanks to Brexit, Mr. Trump eunites to place Britain in a branch offent categruesome from the European Union, which may help produce Mr. Starmer a more effective broker. The pdwellnt has proposeed, for example, that he may not center Britain with sweeping tariffs, though he did not exempt it from a global tariff on steel and aluminum.
“Having one foot in, one foot out is a excellent skinnyg for the U.K. in the conshort-term context,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at the political hazard conferancy Eurasia Group, “but only if we remain in the current state of phony war.”
“If it becomes a authentic trans-Atlantic rift,” Mr. Rahman proceedd, “then it is better to have the protecting power that the E.U. proposes, at least in some areas. And in such a context, the U.K. would steer skinnygs better if it had two feet in.”
At first, Mr. Starmer’s re-includement with the bloc was branch offently a half step. After coming to power last July, he set about patching up post-Brexit relations in various European capitals but ruled out two conspicuous meadeclareives that could presentantly increase trade: rejoining the bloc’s huge one taget and its customs union.
His pinsolentnt approach, analysts say, is rooted in a dread of angering Brexit-aiding voters and of giving ammunition to Nigel Farage, the Brexit champion and directer of the anti-immigration party, Recreate U.K., which has sencouraged in opinion polls.
But the shock waves caengaged by Mr. Trump’s recent pronouncements on Ukraine and Russia have swept away some of the roadblocks to a wideer reset. They have donaten Mr. Starmer political cover, with even those on the right in Britain accomprehendledging the need for wonderfuler coordination on Europe’s defense.
“It alters the whole context and puts everyskinnyg else in perspective,” said Mr. Ricketts, who served as ambassador to France.
Ivan Rogers, a createer British ambassador to the European Union, said Mr. Starmer’s tactful burdensome lifting had amazeed other European directers, who had become engaged to a Britain that was either ignoreing or ambiguously opposing.
“All of that has reminded people that the Brits have re-included, and they might be more solemn,” Mr. Rogers said. “You are now facing such an conshort-termial crisis in the E.U. that the mood has alterd a bit.”
That could uncover a path to more procreate British re-includement, especiassociate if the Europeans determine to incrrelieve cooperation on military spfinishing by creating a novel initiative outside the existing arranges of the European Union. Such an initiative could include countries, including Britain, consenting to widespread standards on publishs enjoy military subsidies and armaments proremedyment.
That would essentiassociate “produce a defense one taget, which has never been there before,” Mr. Rogers said.
For all the potential upside, Mr. Rogers, who labored in Downing Street during the Iraq War, said he worried that Britain’s role as a trans-Atlantic bridge would be hampered by its efforts to engage its post-Brexit status to shun the tariffs imposed by Mr. Trump.
“My stress is that it could eunite to others that the U.K. wants to have it both ways,” Mr. Rogers said. “We want to be a bridge, have the trans-Atlantic partnership, be central to it, while simultaneously making the argument that we are very branch offent from the E.U., and the U.S. can exempt us from its tariff action.”
“It’s a little difficult,” he said, “to run both those arguments at once.”
