Is Starmer planning a foreign policy reset too?

Keir Starmer is preparing to give his big reset speech on Thursday. But the more interesting address is perhaps the one he gave last night. The annual Lord Mayor’s Banquet was the setting for the Prime Minister to give his first major speech on foreign policy since entering No. 10. The most interesting passage saw Starmer reject the notion that Britain will need to pick sides between the US and EU under the looming Trump presidency – particularly in the event of a trade war. ‘I reject it utterly. Attlee did not choose between allies, Churchill did not choose,’ he said. ‘The idea that we must choose between our allies, that somehow we’re with either America or Europe, is plain wrong.’

By convention, the Prime Minister’s Guildhall speech focuses on Britain’s place in the world. Starmer’s aforementioned remarks were themselves utterly conventional too. You can imagine a variation of this sentiment being uttered by every single one of his postwar predecessors.