What Would a Labour Government Mean for the UK’s Security?

In an election campaign already marred by bad weather and unfortunate historical analogies, Rishi Sunak’s early departure from the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy was especially egregious. Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer has stirred the ranks in meetings with world leaders. 

In a decision to head off in the wrong direction, which was more Charge of the Light Brigade than Gold Beach, Sunak left Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, and Volodimir Zelensky at the high-level commemorative event in Normandy to pre-record a TV interview. This was a bad mis-prioritisation that made for poor politics by a prime minister campaigning to save his party’s time in government. Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer did not spurn the political photo opportunity.

Beyond their commemorative function, events involving the heads of state and government signal strategic positions to audiences who might otherwise be less engaged in international relations. They let the public know who you support – and who you oppose.

Sunak’s early departure from the Normandy beaches was described in the pro-Conservative Telegraph as perhaps “the greatest act of electoral self-harm in modern UK political history.” It certainly marked the end of a bad week for Sunak, following the news that Nigel Farage had opened a second front for the Conservatives with his announcement that he would stand for Reform UK in the faded Essex resort of Clacton-on-Sea.

Sunak’s misstep may well have helped Farage’s Reform overtake the Conservatives in opinion polling the following week, whose predominantly older supporters cherish this episode of World War II in their collective memory.

Geopolitical Elections

It is often said that matters of foreign and security policy do not animate voters. Britons are nevertheless aware that the UK is facing an increasingly uncertain world. Considering the extent to which they’ve been exposed to analogies of the 1930s and claims they are a pre-war generation, it would be difficult for them not to be animated. Playing to these anxieties, Sunak has foregrounded security in his campaign.

Although the prominence of security in the current election is striking, questions of national security and Britain’s role in the world were also significant elements of the 2017 and 2019 elections. However, rather than focusing on the external environment per se, concerns were directed towards Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, 2015-20.

In both elections, Corbyn’s record of opposition to British foreign and security policy was presented as evidence that he was a threat to national security. Yet the radical nature of his positions can be overstated.

Corbyn’s victory in the 2015 leadership election was an existential shock for the Labour right. Now back in the ascendency, the right-wing of Labour has doggedly reasserted its control of the party. Although Starmer’s campaign for the Labour leadership in 2020 promised Corbynism in a sharp suit, his time as leader has been characterised by a total rejection of his predecessor. Labour’s candidate selection is an interesting marker of how the party wants to show that it has changed. It is why it has frequently highlighted the 14 military veterans running as Labour candidates.

This speaks to a central component of Starmer’s mantra of a changed Labour Party: the burnishing of his establishment foreign and security policy credentials, including reminding voters that it was a Labour government that helped set up NATO and initiated the UK’s nuclear weapons program in the late 1940s. Nowhere has this been clearer than Labour’s response to the crisis in the Middle East. Where Corbyn was decidedly pro-Palestinian, Starmer initially supported the Israeli framing of the conflict to the anger of many in his party, and Muslim Labour voters.

A post-Brexit Consensus?

Although David Lammy, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, has critiqued the government’s approach, he has nevertheless signalled Labour’s support for some of the most significant post-Brexit foreign policy developments, including AUKUS and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership. Lammy recently reconfirmed this position in an article titled “The Case for Progressive Realism.”

While it is true Labour desires closer relations with the EU (short of rejoining the Single Market or entering a customs union) and has plans to pursue a UK-EU security pact, Sunak’s Tories had already begun the rapprochement. Some commentators remain anxious though, suggesting the pact is a harbinger of closer general alignment with the EU and a threat to AUKUS. However, assuming that they are either/or is wide of the mark. The biggest danger AUKUS faces emanates from a US led by Donald Trump, not the British Labour Party. If the US supports AUKUS, Labour will be a willing partner with the Atlanticists at the helm.

Conclusion

The Sunak campaign’s failure to see the political value of the D-Day commemorations confirmed many of the prime minister’s colleagues’ views that he is not good at politics. Starmer’s team was certainly alive to the moment’s significance: a photo of Starmer and Zelensky together in Normandy made it into Labour’s manifesto the following week.

Talk in Britain has turned to policy space that might be opened up by a Labour landslide. Given the scale of the challenges facing the country after the past 14 years, including austerity, Brexit, and the pandemic, a Labour government will certainly need political capital to create a new compact with an electorate even more disillusioned with politics than at the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016.

Tom Howe is a joint PhD candidate in International Relations at the universities of Monash and Warwick.

Ben Wellings is an associate professor of politics and international relations at Monash University.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.