When the United Kingdom really wants to entertain its guests, it takes them to the countryside. To one of the aristocratic mansions that have starred in films or novels. And of all of them, the most popular is Blenheim Palace, in the town of Woodstock, 100 kilometres from London and 15 from Oxford. The residence of the Dukes of Marlborough. And the place where Winston Churchill was born. The new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has claimed the spirit of the most relevant and most European British politician of the 20th century to “reset” the island’s relationship with the continent, after the tug-of-war of 14 bitter years of governments. tories. “We want to be your friends and partners, ready to work with you. We are no longer part of the EU, but we are still very much part of Europe,” Starmer told the fifty or so leaders who attended the 4th Summit of the European Political Community (EPC), asking them for help on security and illegal immigration.
The EPC was an invention of French President Emmanuel Macron, who never fully defined its structure, its operation or its authority. Starmer has inherited an event that was completely prepared in advance by the government of his predecessor, Rishi Sunak, and has known how to use it to give solemnity to his promise to begin a new chapter with European partners.
Starmer has two objectives in this initial phase of reunion. First, a new security pact, under the umbrella of NATO – its Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, was present at the Woodstock meeting – to face the new threats in common. And second, greater cooperation to provide responses to the migration crisis that got out of hand and led Sunak to the path of populism, with the Rwanda solution.
Starmer wanted to place the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, on his right, and presented him as the defender, not only of his country, but of all of Europe, against Russian aggression. “Have no doubt,” he assured his guest, “we will be by your side for as long as it takes.”
Zelensky vs Orbán
The Ukrainian president spoke at the plenary session immediately after it was opened by Starmer, and did so to harshly attack the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, who on July 5 met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on a “peace mission” repudiated by the entire EU bloc.
Knowing what’s happening outside means understanding what’s going to happen inside, so don’t miss anything.
KEEP READING
“If someone in Europe tries to resolve these issues behind our backs, or even at the expense of another [en referencia a Ucrania]”If someone wants to go on a trip to the ‘capital of war’ to talk, and maybe even to promise something against the common interest of others, or at the expense of Ukraine or other countries, why should we take such a person into consideration?” Zelensky asked the Hungarian national populist.
Illegal immigration, not a challenge, but a crisis
The most urgent challenge inherited by Starmer is the response to illegal immigration. On his first day in office, the Prime Minister has sought to wipe out the plan to deport migrants to Rwanda, which Sunak insisted on maintaining at all costs, even threatening to ignore the orders of the European Court of Human Rights if he tried to stop any of the planned flights.
“We must combine our resources, share our intelligence and our tactics, together crack down on the routes used by people traffickers and crush these criminal gangs,” Starmer demanded of the other European leaders. The Prime Minister incorporated a humanitarian discourse that has rarely been heard from the British right when talking about immigration: “More must be done to solve the causes that are at the root of this crisis: war, climate change or extreme poverty. The main blame lies with criminal gangs, yes, but the decision of these people to leave their homes cannot be isolated from broader issues, such as global inequality, which also deserve our attention,” said the new tenant of Downing Street.
At the end of the summit, Starmer announced that the United Kingdom would allocate around 100 million euros to new cooperation projects in Africa and the Middle East, focusing on humanitarian aid, health care, job training and the creation of new jobs, as well as education.
The political leaders who attended Blenheim Palace were entertained with all the pomp required by the situation. King Charles III of England presided over the reception that closed a meeting that, from the beginning, was expected to have little content and fewer effective decisions, but which was the representation sought by Starmer of a new tone in the relations between the island and the continent; between London and Brussels. To definitively leave behind the accumulated resentment of Brexit.
Follow all the international information atFacebook andXor inour weekly newsletter.
