Starmer is making Britain a world leader again

Internationalism is now a defining feature – and a promise – of the Labor government. At yesterday’s UN General Assembly, Keir Starmer delivered a clear and unequivocal message: Britain is ready to work as an equal partner with other countries to tackle global warming, war and the threat to the rule of law . He was there to combat the ‘fatalism’ that he fears has now gripped the international community.

He offered a hopeful but apologetic message. “I think the international system can be better. We need to get better,” he said. “(We must move) from the paternalism of the past to (the) partnership of the future.” So British paternalism. You got the sense that he was more comfortable making a speech at the United Nations than at the Labor conference. This is a man steeped in international law. He remembers reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a university student. “It had a profound impact on me,” he told the sparse audience in the dull, spaceship-like hall of the General Assembly. Let’s not forget that Starmer wrote an 883-page book on EU human rights law.

The “high-level” week of the UN General Assembly dominates the diplomatic calendar. The leader of each country gives a speech. Starmer spoke after Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and before Nepal’s KP Sharma Oli. (Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray and several other aides from Number 10 watched from the sidelines alongside the Nepalese delegation.) Britain’s permanent seat on the Security Council means the UN is a final institution where their voice matters. This was an opportunity for this new, unknown Prime Minister to reset other countries’ perception of Britain.

Starmer shook off key pillars of Labour’s foreign policy: respect for developing countries, defense of the rule of law, the belief that what happens abroad has consequences for Britons at home. The latter also applies in reverse: the way Britain is governed at home will affect its reputation abroad. Starmer’s top team believes climate change is a key area where Britain can take the lead. That’s why Starmer is making sure that in his speech he makes a pledge to deliver clean energy by 2030 and that Labor has withdrawn the ban on onshore wind energy.

Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy have been on the same page all week. Lammy has been here since Monday, when he proclaimed at the Security Council, holding the UN Charter and looking at the Russian representative, that he knew imperialism when he saw it because his ancestors had been slaves. It was a passionate, personal statement announcing his arrival on the international stage. He denounced Russia as a “mafia state” hungry for a “mafia empire.” The Prime Minister was equally stern with the Council, accusing Russia of treating its citizens like “pieces of meat thrown into a grinder.”

Both think the biggest problem with Putin’s invasion is its illegality under international law. Both defended the international system and the UN Charter from violation. Starmer’s speech at the General Assembly went one step further, making a plea for Britain to return to a position of global leadership. He wants to do this by “listening a lot more, speaking a little less, offering cutting-edge British expertise and working together in the spirit of equal respect.”

Such words do not guarantee success. Speeches, no matter how empathetic, do not generate power. And that is the reality this new Prime Minister must now face.

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