David Lammy (London, 51 years old) descends from Caribbean parents from Guyana. And he was raised by his mother along with three brothers in the London neighborhood of Tottenham. Everything indicates that at the end of this week he will be the new British Foreign Minister, if the Labor Party confirms the poll forecasts and sweeps the polls. He already held a position, as Secretary of State, in Tony Blair’s Government. Almost three decades aligned with the most moderate current of the British left have led him to defend a “realistic progressivism” in foreign policy, which consists of contemplating “the world as it is, and not as we would like it to be.”
One of the priorities of Keir Starmer’s future government will be to try to rescue from the ruins the relationship between London and Brussels, which was seriously damaged after the Brexit referendum in 2016, despite the last-minute efforts of the current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to repair it.
It will be a difficult task, because part of the idea of accepting the world as it is has consisted of assuming that the divorce between the United Kingdom and the EU is irreversible. Lammy, like Starmer, were two staunch defenders of remaining in the community club first and of holding a second referendum later. Today they strongly reject any return to the internal market or the common customs area, and much less the recovery of the freedom of movement of citizens between the two blocks.
“We have developed a path of security cooperation between the United Kingdom and the EU that we can continue to work on, and I believe that we have now entered a cycle in which we can turn the page on the resentment and bitterness that we experience in the past,” Lammy explained this Monday to the correspondents who had come to listen to him at the Foreign Press Association. “We want to see a European continent in which there is growth and prosperity for all Europeans. And the United Kingdom is a fundamental part of that future. That is why we propose to start conversations with our European colleagues in good faith,” he assured.
Lammy proposes two ways to restart this relationship. Firstly, through close cooperation on security and defence, as has been seen with regard to Ukraine, which will allow us to regain the trust that is essential for taking the next steps. The next objective, along this path, would be to improve trade relations that Brexit left in tatters. “Boris Johnson negotiated a very poor and weak Trade and Cooperation Agreement. We know that the treaty contemplates its own review in 2025-2026. We want to carry out this review in good faith in the EU. With red lines that we have made very clear, such as that we do not want to rejoin the customs union, but with broad possibilities of agreements in areas such as veterinary controls,” explained the Labour politician.
Continuity regarding Gibraltar
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Lammy has had plenty of time to prepare for a complex transition rife with hot-button issues. Take Gibraltar, for example. The current Foreign Minister, David Cameron, had accelerated the solution to the post-Brexit situation of the Rock, with two high-level meetings in Brussels with his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares, when the early elections paralysed those talks. “It is a matter in which I intend to continue where Cameron left off, and I hope to resume as soon as possible. I know that it is an issue pending conclusion in the Brexit negotiations, and I will address it in the coming days,” he has promised.
Support of the ”Financial Times’
The Labor Party is sailing with a tailwind in recent days, amidst general conviction and applause from British institutions for the upcoming change of cycle. The influential newspaper Financial Timeswith an editorial line firmly defending “liberal democracy, free trade and private enterprise”, has called for “a new beginning for the United Kingdom” and expressed its support for candidate Starmer.
The newspaper still maintains certain reservations regarding the economic policy of the Labor Party, the details of which have been outlined very vaguely, but it trusts in the formation to face the challenges of climate change, artificial intelligence, a rising China, a revisionist Russia and a possible second presidency of Republican Donald Trump in the United States.
Lammy studied at Harvard Law School in the United States. He maintains important connections with former President Barack Obama’s team, but has also managed to court Trump’s neoconservative advisors and the intelligentsia that has nourished with ideas the news currents of the Republican Party.
“We live in a moment in which the world order, based on rules and laws, is being undermined,” Lammy summarized. “We must renew our commitment to this world order, but when I speak of realistic progressivism I demand that we see the world as it is, not as we would like it to be, in order to do what is in our power to achieve progressive objectives, global peace, security and prosperity for all,” he stressed.
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