Coffee House Shots
Keir Starmer’s first foreign policy tests
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Can you sort of give us a sense of the significance of this incursion, and maybe where we are speaking on Tuesday afternoon? So the context for this is that the situation in Ukraine has been pretty dire of last few months, and certainly a lot of people in Kiev have been looking ahead to, you know, with considerable trepidation to the winter to come and where the country is going to be at that time. I mean, I think, you know, the U.S. election as well is looming large. The challenges in getting that aid package across the line, I think, was a pretty traumatic period for most people in Ukraine, and, you know, they're reading the writing on the wall there that suggests that it's not going to be an easy road for them moving forward, regardless the outcome of the election in November. So I think the mood had been pretty difficult. The territory that Russia has taken down the South and the East Ukraine has been struggling to kind of make incursions there and push the Russians back. So what they've done is developed a strategy really with extraordinary secrecy. I mean, even key allies were not briefed. And, you know, it was basically a sort of kind of blitzkrieg, kind of move a surprise incursion in a part of the border that Russia really didn't have its eyes on. And we see that in the way that they weren't really able to mobilize effectively. The Ukrainians were able to kind of move, you know, gaining territory much more quickly than they had anticipated. So it has been a really successful mission for Ukraine. And I think the impact of that has been felt in two immediate ways. The first is that Russia is having to divert resources from other parts of occupied Ukraine to this front inside its own borders. So that's that is really meaningful. The second is the impact on Russian citizens. And I think one of the really challenging aspects of this conflict has been that, you know, Putin has had his people behind him. There's all sorts of reasons for that. And obviously it's a totalitarian state. So dissent is not something freely able to be expressed. But certainly we haven't seen any kind of popular uprisings or anything like that. Here we've got an estimated 120,000 citizens have been displaced already, are being evacuated, moved into different towns and villages. Certainly I don't think we're sort of seeing any kind of revolt on the back of this against Putin and the Ukrainian people obviously are being blamed in the Russian propaganda. But there is anger towards the government for not having protected them. So I think both of these things are really significant. How long Ukraine can actually hold this offensive is to be seen. And they've actually come out today and said, look, you know, our intention is not to be occupying Russia in the way that they have been occupying Ukraine. You know, that's not their long-term objective. What they're really trying to do here is to alter the balance of power in questions around peace negotiations. And they're really trying to put so much pressure on Moscow that they are forced to have a conversation about ending this really intractable conflict. What sort of headaches does this bring about for Kiyastam, do you think? Because we now have British weapons being used on Russian soil. Obviously there are restrictions on the use of British weapons in Russia. But how does this sort of change the game? Does this increase pressure on the MOD? Do you think when it comes to supply of ammunition and how it's used? So the conception of what we have sanctioned is that we and our other, you know, allies in the West have said the Ukrainians can use, you know, Western weapons, arms, hardware and so on for the strict purpose of the defense of Ukraine. And I think there obviously is some gray area around that, these kinds of, you know, air bases and, you know, there's a little piece along the border which are being used by the Russian army to attack Ukrainian towns and cities and terrorise civilians. So I think, you know, there is a conception in which actually encroachments over the border are legitimate within that defensive framework. But it is also true that allies are being, you know, watching very, very carefully and being very cautious about expressing that hard line that we have, that this is not to be an offensive into Russia. It has to always be couched in defensive terms. And it is absolutely possible that in the coming days we get to a point where that line becomes difficult to tread. And I'm sure that behind the scenes there is a lot of diplomatic work being done to make sure that, you know, that there's the right cover and legitimacy for this story because it has been so important for the way in which not just Western powers have talked about our involvement in this conflict to the international community but also to our populations. Well, James, moving on to Iran. The Prime Minister made a phone call last night to Tehran urging them to refrain from attacking Israel. Does this add to the perception perhaps that's been built by his performance at NATO and at Blenheim Palace that Starmer can be trusted on these big policy areas? Yeah. And obviously, I think, you know, there's a strange community, the international community whereby, you know, when they're all alone in these world leaders, they're always sort of intrigued by a new addition to their numbers. So I understand it's sort of running palace and Starmer was very much over an impressive majority of course. And some of those world leaders are not doing terribly well. So to have a new shiny arrival from the center left winning world, they're all rather impressed by him as I understand it. So I think, you know, he's gone on well. The start of it, he's obviously helps through a huge domestic support, which obviously, when people are making considerations think this guy's going to be around for five, 10 years to come, always helps with building that. And I think Starmer, you know, has been in government for in the sense of working as director of public prosecutions, very different, obviously, organization that had some international outreach in that role at the CPS. And so I think, yeah, his start has been, it's funny, you know, for someone who campaigned obviously on domestic themes, there's obviously been various foreign policy crises and obviously over the summer, Whitehall has been trying to get to grips on the missions and those plans, those five goals he wants to do. But actually, he's having to end up spending his time talking about either the riots or foreign policy calls. And we had the first call yesterday between the first British prime minister and Iranian president since March 2021. Boris Johnson and how much has changed since then. And really, I mean, it was a fairly obvious restatement to the message, which is international cooperation on this. I saw a sphere tweet a few days ago about the emergence of what the calling the E3, which is the leaders of Germany, France and the UK as well, all center left leaders currently Schultz, Macron, and Starmer. So it'll be interesting to see how that holds and going forward. And really, I think on this one, it's a fairly united front. It's it's funless contentious that Ukraine has been over the last couple of years, but urging Iran to, you know, de-escalate. And the same time, I think, as, you know, talking to people in Israel and the less said, some of them are really preparing for war right now. So it remains to be seen how that develops. Yeah, so I think this is obviously a very volatile situation. What are the other levers that are at Kia Starmer's disposal when it comes to de-escalating here? For the Americans part, they are really trying to pursue deterrence. So they've moved a lot of their assets into the region. They're sort of saying, look, you know, we will be supporting our allies here. And, you know, obviously the full force of the US military might is and war machine, you know, does still carry weight. So they're trying to pursue that. But really, the bigger story here is the return of diplomacy. I mean, the extraordinary diplomacy that is going on behind the scenes here, you've got this US-led conversation with the Egyptians and Qatar. I think it's really interesting, James just mentioned that tweet about the E3. The reason it was so interesting to see Starmer come out and make the statement with Macron and Schulz is because this was a statement that was explicitly supporting what the Americans were doing, but also from a separate point of view to what the Americans were doing. Not in any way creating distance with their endeavor, but just sort of recognizing the fact that there is a sort of separate mission that the Americans are engaged in with these two other regional partners, that is something where they are best placed to lead on, and that there's actually the potential for the emergence of a European conversation about the Middle East, which, you know, there's a long history for this. The E3 was actually forged 21 years ago, really, in the start of all of these Iran nuclear negotiations. And so historically, it has not been unusual for that to be European position. And frankly, if you think about some of the conversations going on in Washington about America's kind of broader international posture, like the reality is that in Europe, we are affected by what happens in the Middle East in a distinct way. If you've got big refugee flows and things like that regional instability, that is spilling into our, this is our neighborhood. So I think what's interesting is that we are seeing a kind of renaissance of diplomacy and the significance of that. We are having to ask more of our leaders and the people who were in these positions in the foreign ministry, defense ministry. These are much bigger, more intensive jobs than they were some time ago. And I think if we think about Stommer and the sort of baptism of fire here, he started with these two extraordinary gifts of the NATO summit and the European political community summit, you know, in weeks one and two. This summit is something that's being planned for months and months. And you've got a control over the message. And yes, there's a lot of diplomacy in the background. But you know, that that's a very proactive force. And you know, I think Stommer is a sort of politician who wants to pursue a kind of, you know, an increment, a very measured incrementalism with this kind of policy agenda. That is important. And there's a lot of things that need to be done in this country in that way. But do you politics at the moment are very dynamic? And you've got to also be able to prove that you can react to events and respond really effectively to them? Well, James, back in Westminster, Tom Tugenhall, former defense minister, has given a press conference today and a Q&A. Can you tell us about some of the top lines from that? Yep. So I think this was a very Tom Tugenhall speech at a very Tom Tugenhall venue. It was at Rusey, the defense military think tank on security in Whitehall, just a stone throw away from number 10 Downing Street, where Tom Tugenhall himself wants to stay one day hopes to reside. And really, this was his response to the events of the last couple of weeks with the writing or so, so you can spend the weekend campaigning when the country sort of posing for photographs, et cetera, and meeting. But this was now going back to work, really, and sort of gathering the media today and talking about Labour's response to the riots. I think probably the top line that will get most papers were his punchy criticisms. He said that Nigel Farage was guilty of spreading fake news. He also said that Jayce Phillips should have been sacked for her tweet last week. Which appeared to excuse what was happening, some intimidation of journalists and the streets of Birmingham. And really, I think this was probably the right time for making him intervention, because you've got to know the distance of the course you're running. This is a long race. This is a 1500 meters to use an Olympic analogy, not 100 meters sprint. So Tom was the first one out of the block, very quick. And I think the key thing about is keeping the momentum up during the summer. So making this kind of intervention today, I think, helps address what I hear is the most kind of common complaint, pretty baseless, I think, personally. But the criticism, the here among certain sections of the right, he's somewhat wet somehow. Which, of course, is a charge that's been levelled at one nation types for decades. And you only have to look at the kind of hat-trick of military crosswinners in Peter Carrington, Francis Pym, and Willy White Law to show the nonsense that it's a judge about a personal character. But appearing to be tough on law and order, talking about this, perhaps giving vent some of those frustrations in government. He was security minister for two years. But a lot of that he couldn't talk about. One thing he can talk about is the protests. So when he was asked about two, you talk about two-tier policing, he preferred not to focus on the recent riots, but actually what happened in terms of the policing of different protests with the pro-Palestinian marches. And I think that's something that's missed out in the wider conversation when people say, "Oh, two-tier policing." I think the most stories we speak to refer to it are either referring to the Palestinian marches, or what we saw in 2020 with the COVID and difference between the COVID crackdowns and actually what was happened with the George Floyd Black Lives Matter marches over here in this country. So I think that's just that as an aside. But really, it was the kind of thing where it was billed as being a great thinker by some write-ups. I don't think it was necessary that, but there was nothing in there which I think was rather than a common sense from a Tory point of view. So I think he's a job well done for today, and the key thing for, of course, is moving from the middle of the pack to getting out of front if he wants to win a 1,500-meter race that we call the Tory leadership. Yeah. And Sophia, you've worked quite closely with Tom Toot, I believe. What's your assessment on his leadership bid so far? Well, I think as James noted, he actually has had a very consuming job the last couple of years. That's a curious humanistic role, and particularly with the current landscape, it's just extraordinarily demanding. And it's not a job that you can easily clock out of, and be pursuing side projects. It's completely consuming. And so actually, he hadn't had the opportunity to be as visible as I think some of the other candidates who obviously had much more public-facing roles. It's a very, very important job, and hopefully he can express some of the tenets of the very important work that he was doing in that. But of course, we know from his time on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that he was able to build a really, really strong public profile for himself. And I think a lot of that was particularly some campaigning, really, and drawing attention to issues like China. I do have a feeling that these questions of China and defense spending and so on are actually going to come into view a lot more sharply in the second half of the leadership contest. I think the riots and the questions around policing have necessarily consumed a lot of focus. But I think once recesses over and we're back in Parliament and they're having to deal with the actual policy stuff, I do think those things will come more into focus. And he should be well placed to respond to that. So we will see. I mean, it is an extraordinary marathon, as James said. And I am also thinking beyond the race itself. I do think those issues, regardless of who wins, will also probably be where the Conservatives try and challenge Labour the most. And there is a sort of playbook for that, actually, with what's happened in Australia, where Labour there won after a long time on the backbenchers. And that's the approach the Conservatives have really challenged on as being around national security. So I think we can imagine that those will be the big issues shaping the kind of overton window of political debate once the Conservatives have got themselves together. But I do also think they will be where the candidates really battle it out and go for the jugular in the second half of the campaign. And just to have a thing, right now, the conversation that most Tory MPs are having is not first or sixth. It's the position for fourth. Obviously, you go back to Westminster at the beginning of September, and then you have two rounds in successive days to knock out the sixth and knock out the fifth and get down to that final four, and then that final four stay together to get down to a final two in October. So the key thing, of course, is frankly, Mel Stryd, sadly, best as efforts. It looks like he's going to come sixth, but he'll be fourth and fifth, who will survive into that. And I think right now the conversation, most names that those three who think will be fourth or fifth tend to be, you know, pretty patello, James Cleverly or Tom Teganat for that position. So we remain to be seen. And I think it could come down to a couple of one or two votes in it, given how small part party is. And you go back to 2001, and back then, of course, Michael Portillo was knocked out by one vote, and IDS went through to the final two and beat Ken Clark. So that's I think the key thing I'm looking at. But right now it's all about canvassing with the members, and I'm sure the members will be doing their own kind of lobbying to make sure there's some sort of quality control on the candidate they want in the final four. Great. Well, we'll be keeping you all updated on our Coffee House blog and of course on Coffee House shots. Thank you, James. Thank you, Sophia. And thank you very much for listening. [Music]