For anyone who watched Keir Starmer’s final few farewell speeches, a logical conclusion to draw would be that the beleaguered former Prime Minister wants his legacy defined by the summer of 2024. That summer, of course, being one where he led his party to historic victory following 14 long years relegated to the wilderness of opposition. For many, however, the hallmark of Starmer’s premiership won’t take the form of that sweet victory. Instead, it will look more like the vertiginous plunge that came after: a dramatic fall in Labour’s polling numbers, as a product of, first, an excess of unpopular policy announcements and dizzying u-turns, and second, the sobering reality of governing as a centrist: you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
Many Starmerites will seethe at what they deem to be a harsh indictment by both voters and the commentariat on Starmer’s time at No. 10. And in their defence of Starmer, they may well point to not his domestic record, but instead to what he achieved away from home. On that framing, this writer would be hard-pressed to disagree.
On a crisp, sunny early March morning in 2025, I stood outside Lancaster House in Central London along with dozens of others who had gathered hoping to catch a glimpse at the stream of convoys heading into the building’s entrance. Dozens of officials from across the European Union and NATO had gathered for an emergency summit on international cooperation and funding for Ukraine, not two days after President Volodymyr Zelensky had been berated at the Oval Office by President Donald Trump in front of the world’s cameras. The day of the London summit, Starmer announced that the UK, in conjunction with allies like France, would form a ‘coalition of the willing’ to bolster Ukraine’s defence capabilities and map out a framework for long-term peace. Much litigated from that day was that Starmer had greeted Zelensky with a warm embrace outside No. 10, in marked contrast to the unnerving spectacle which had unfolded days earlier in Washington.
If there is any moment of the last two years which exemplifies Starmer at his finest, it was this day: a leader galvanising like-minded allies around the common endeavour for Ukrainian freedom, and in doing so demonstrating the courage to stand on principle even at the risk of inviting the wrath of the man No. 10 had been at pains to appease in weeks prior.
On the subject of Trump, Starmer’s gamble of placating the President while standing firm on Europe largely succeeded, not least because of the tangible benefits the approach reaped for Britons. The two leaders first met in-person in an amiable Oval Office meeting in February 2025, one day before Zelensky received a markedly more hostile reception in the same room. In a scene more befitting a foreign emissary kow-towing to an ancient emperor than modern-day allyship, Starmer lavished Trump with praise before unveiling an invitation from the King. Of course, Starmer seized on his first opportunity to stress the singularity of being invited for a second state visit to the UK: “This is really special. This has never happened before.”
What that episode also highlighted was the many benefits of constitutional monarchy, and the reality that few countries can deploy their head of state with as much potency as Britain can its King. Such an argument, however, would be better suited for an article of its own. Returning to Starmer, his visit to Trump resulted in tariffs on British cars being slashed from 25% to 10%, while another 25% tariff on British steel and aluminium was reduced to zero. Subsequently, even as allies and foes alike were repeatedly threatened with tariffs exceeding 50%, maximum tariffs on British exports to the U.S. never exceeded the baseline 10% set by the Trump administration, saving thousands of British jobs and hundreds of millions of pounds for manufacturers.
The Starmer-Trump dynamic hasn’t been solely about flattery. Where it mattered, as on the topic of Ukraine, Starmer was unwilling to cling unquestionably to Trump. Refusing the use of British bases for offensive operations in what this writer regards as the President’s misguided war in Iran was a principled decision, and one that puts Starmer in sync with European Allies and international norms. Moreover, the formal recognition of a Palestinian State last autumn bolsters the vulnerable but necessary cause for a two-state solution and the path towards self-determination for Palestinians and security for Israelis.
And of course, for many, any of Starmer’s foreign policy triumphs are vastly overshadowed by what they see as leniency when it comes to Israel’s ruinous war in Gaza, which many scholars and human rights organisations have argued amounts to a genocide. The purpose of this piece is not to play down such sentiments, but rather to argue that in relation to Europe, Trump, and some other areas, Starmer’s international record shows a man most in his element not as a Prime Minister tasked with remedying domestic troubles, but as a statesman marshalling allies and standing up to strongmen. Admittedly, Gaza qualifies this thesis. It does not, however, invalidate it: wherever he did triumph in his foreign policy, his victories were significant. Starmer has succeeded beyond Atlantic alliances too; his brokering of a careful rapprochement in Sino-Britain relations is but one example, and has brought further benefits to Brits in the form of visa free travel to China and the lifting of sanctions on several British MPs.
So, to get a true sense of what Starmer’s legacy may be, one may have to look past Labour’s seismic 2024 majority, or the troubles that soon followed at home. Instead, and perhaps surprisingly, his very final week at the helm offers some better clues: On July 13, while in France to attend his final summit of the Coalition of the Willing, President Emmanuel Macron presented Starmer with the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest state distinction, for the unwavering support he showed Ukraine throughout his premiership. And fittingly, Starmer’s final trip abroad was to Ukraine, where on July 16 he was awarded the Order of Freedom medal by Zelensky.
It’s a fate familiar to incumbents like Macron, who, having held office for a long time, are forced to grapple with waning popularity at home – and so, they look abroad for a sense of purpose, seeking to build a lasting foreign policy footprint. Starmer found himself in such a predicament with unusual haste. Nonetheless, what he has achieved abroad was summed up rather endearingly by European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, in a tribute to Starmer shortly after he announced his resignation: “It can take many leaders years to grow into the statesman you became in just two years.”