As Starmer and Sunak both pledge to maintain the Special Relationship, Chris Bambery examines the two main parties’ foreign policy records

Foreign affairs have hardly featured in the electoral contest between the two main parties, the Conservatives and Labour. Both are desperate to avoid the war in Gaza and Britain’s support for Israel, including arming it. True, Sir Keir Starmer has claimed once in Downing Street he would move to recognise the state of Palestine, but only if there is a ‘safe and secure Israel,’ which means it’s a meaningless promise.

Of course, the various independent candidates will seek to bring both the Tories and Labour to account over Palestine. But aside from wishing to avoid that issue, the truth is that there is scarcely a cigarette paper between both main parties on the major international issues.

Chatham House, the semi-official foreign affairs sounding board in Whitehall, stated, in October 2023, that there was:

… a relative consensus between the parties on some key foreign policy issues. Some divisions exist – on Europe, migration, and approaches to global economics. But on China, international development, the transatlantic alliance and particularly continued support for Ukraine, differences are matters of tone or degree – not approach.

Starmer and the Labour leadership’s support for Israel in the current Gaza War flows in part from a long standing support for Zionism in the upper reaches of the Labour Party. Its support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine predated the November 1917 Balfour declaration by three months.¹

Every Labour Prime Minister supported either the creation of Israel or once created supported it unconditionally. That position was shared by the doyen of the Labour left, Aneurin Bevan.²

But Starmer, as over Ukraine and China, has also stuck closely to President Joe Biden’s script, anxious to prove he will be a firm Atlanticist if elected. Starmer shares the liberal interventionism (imperialism) of Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, whose Vice President was Biden.

But that does not stop him insisting that he will work with Donald Trump if both are elected, insisting:

We will work with whoever is elected… We have a special relationship with the U.S. that transcends whoever the president is.

The same article points out that Shadow Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, has gone from describing Trump as a ‘racist KKK and Nazi sympathizer’ in 2017 to saying the ex-president is ‘often misunderstood.’

What then lies behind Labour’s support for the ‘special relationship’ with the USA? Well, for one thing, this very much forged by the 1945-1951 Labour government of Clement Attlee. Today this is seen as Labour’s golden age by many on the left. It did, after all, create the National Health Service and the welfare state, notable gains for the British working class. But its record abroad was appalling.

The Attlee government shared the desire of the Conservative leader and wartime premier, Winston Churchill, to maintain the British Empire and it fought a vicious colonial war to keep control of Malaysia’s valuable rubber and tin. It could not hold onto India and Palestine.

As the cold war between the USA and the Soviet Union developed, it led the way in creating a strong alliance with the USA, taking the lead in creating Nato. It developed Britain’s atom bomb at huge cost and took it to war with the USA in Korea, at even greater cost, accepting Washington’s demand that it increase military spending to around 25 percent of its budget.³

Atlanticism runs deep then in Labour leadership circles, except for Jeremy Corbyn’s brief tenure, and that was a key reason for his decapitation.

Economic Interdependence and the Special Relationship

Britain is often described as America’s poodle, for instance over Tony Blair’s support for the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, but while that’s a good line, it misses out the strong material links between the two states, and just how much leverage the US has over the UK.

In July 2023 the US government revealed that the UK is the top destination for US outbound investment. The investment of U.S. multinational enterprises (MNEs) in five countries accounted for more than half of the total U.S. direct investment abroad position at the end of 2022. The largest percentage was in the UK ($1.1 trillion), followed by the Netherlands ($0.9 trillion) and Luxembourg ($0.6 trillion). Ireland ($0.6 trillion) and Canada ($0.4 trillion) rounded out the top five.

In May 2024 the UK Department of Business and Trade reported that:

United States was the UK’s largest trading partner in the four quarters to the end of Q4 2023 accounting for 17.6% of total UK trade. In 2021, the outward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) from the UK in United States was £461.4 billion accounting for 26.1% of the total UK outward FDI stock. In 2021, the inward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK from United States was £675.7 billion accounting for 33.7% of the total UK inward FDI stock.

The UK is a major investor in the United States, second only to Japan:

In 2021, the total UK FDI abroad was £1.8 trillion. In 2021, the top destination for UK FDI was United States, accounting for 26.1% of the total UK outward FDI stock, followed by Netherlands (8.8%) and Luxembourg (7.2%).

The US is an even bigger investor in the UK:

In 2021, the stock of FDI from United States in the UK was £675.7 billion, 15.4% or £90.4 billion higher than in 2020. In 2021, United States accounted for 33.7% of the total UK inward FDI stock. In 2021, the total FDI in the UK in was £2.0 trillion. In 2021, the top investor in the UK was United States, accounting for 33.7% of the total UK inward FDI stock, followed by Netherlands (10.9%) and Jersey (9.6%).

An April 2024 Santander report using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2023 shows that the United States maintained its dominant position in terms of both immediate (GBP 675.7 billion) and ultimate (GBP 817.4 billion) inward FDI. Following the U.S., Japan and France held the second and third highest ultimate positions at 8.8% and 6.2%, respectively. The sectors attracting the majority of foreign investment are financial services; professional, scientific and technical services; retail and wholesale trade; transportation and storage; and ICT.

The same report points out why US corporations might choose Britain:

One of the main strengths of the UK economy in attracting FDI is that its economy is one of the most liberal in Europe and its business environment is extremely favourable to FDI.

They do not fear that this will change under a Starmer government.

In his book Vassal State: How America Runs Britain, Angus Hanton, argues that the UK accounts for 30 per cent of American overseas investment and over half of US corporate assets held in Europe, making New York–London the ‘biggest route of cross-border takeovers in the world.’

At this point it is worth asking what is the basis for the UK’s alliance with the USA today? To explain that is to see why the British state, its personnel and the British ruling class could not envisage breaking with Washington. Starmer, as with other Labour prime ministers, will cut his cloth accordingly.

The UK’s permanent seat on the United Nation’s Security Council is crucial to its great power pretensions. It relies on the US to keep it.

The United Kingdom benefits from defence industrial cooperation with the United States, access to US technical intelligence, and US security guarantees. In addition, UK diplomats in Washington have higher level access to policymakers than any other country.

If the special relationship exists it’s not one between political leaders but between the two states and their personnel:

The operational core of the Special Relationship rests on collaboration in intelligence, special forces, and nuclear weapons. In these three areas, the UK and U.S. give each other trust they extend to no one else. The trust is maintained not by presidents and prime ministers, but by officials and military personnel working closely together, as they have done for decades.

Close could not describe the working relationship between the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA). GCHQ is able to carry out intelligence gathering the NSA is prevented from doing by US law.

The UK is part of Five Eyes which brings the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand into the world’s most complete and comprehensive intelligence alliance. It was created in 1946 with a treaty between the Attlee government and the Truman administration.

As Privacy International points out:

The Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangements are shrouded in secrecy, allowing for arbitrary or unlawful intrusions on the right to privacy which circumvent domestic legal restrictions on state surveillance. There is no domestic legislation governing intelligence-sharing, meaning that many of these arrangements lack legal basis and therefore democratic legitimacy. The ‘third party rule,’ often included in intelligence-sharing agreements, forbids the disclosure of inter-agency information to third parties, ousting the possibility of oversight.

Some of the bilateral agreements falling under the UK/USA umbrella reveal the outsourcing of surveillance activities to corporations without limiting their access to classified information, contributing to the privatisation of espionage. This raises questions about the delegation of governmental functions to private actors that remain unanswered.

Pressing the button: Labour and nuclear deterrents

In 2021 the US, US and Australia signed the AUKUS treaty which would give Australia nuclear submarines capable of firing nuclear missiles.

This is a nuclear alliance clearly aimed at China, as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out:

‘But from the standpoint of deterring Chinese aggression within the next ten years, the most significant aspect of the deal was something else: a new trilateral submarine force posture initiative. This arrangement will see four U.S. Virginia-class submarines and one UK Astute-class submarine begin to make rotational deployments to Western Australia’s HMAS Stirling naval base from 2027.’

AUKUS gives the UK a key role in the Pacific, countering China, something UK policy makers have been keen to establish. It also enables the U.S. to work closely with two countries with whom it shares a close strategic and operational outlook.

Keir Starmer welcomed Britain joining this new alliance.

The reality of Britain’s ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent is that depends on the United States:

Today, the United States and UK deploy identical Ohio class submarines armed with Trident missiles. US Navy and Royal Navy submarines are serviced in Kings Bay, Georgia, and share a common pool of missiles. Britain’s nuclear warheads are designed and built at the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, but with US technical expertise. British liaison officers are stationed at US Strategic Command. This is a nuclear relationship of unprecedented intimacy.

It’s a virility test for British prime ministerial candidates, Conservative or Labour, to state that they would be prepared to press the button to fire these nuclear weapons. In truth they would require Washington’s permission and involvement.

It was a virility test Starmer could not pass on. Speaking alongside 10 Labour candidates who have served in the armed forces, he said Labour would stick with the Conservative Government’s plans for the ongoing construction of four new nuclear submarines being built in Barrow-in-Furness and maintain the continuous at-sea deterrent.

The third commitment in the Trident ‘triple lock’ was a pledge to deliver upgrades for nuclear submarines.

Starmer said:

‘Throughout the whole of this Parliament, I have deliberately not been partisan over issues of national security.’ Adding that his commitment to Trident was ‘absolute’ and insisting that he would press the nuclear button but claimed the circumstances under which he would do so were top secret.

He also said, ‘As to the circumstances in which the deterrent would be used, obviously that is a matter of high confidentiality. You wouldn’t and nobody would expect someone who is serious about being prime minister to disclose the circumstances in which he or she might take action.’

Whatever their backgrounds Labour leaders will move in elite circles where, as long as they are not Jeremy Corbyn, they will be made very comfortable and at home. Needless to say, the US and UK elites are tied together by a million golden threads

US and UK diplomats, for example, often share a common background.

Many of them share a worldview, a common culture, and bonds of friendship and trust, especially given that many British diplomats have studied in the United States, and dozens of leading US diplomats and policy practitioners were educated at Oxford, Cambridge, and other top British universities through Rhodes, Marshall, and other scholarship opportunities.

The political elites in both the United States and Britain have shared a common vision of a liberal world order that they built together after 1945.

The consensus on foreign policy in this election also includes a consensus on military spending, as Chatham House explains:

Given the risks the UK faces, particularly from Russian aggression in Europe, and the existing gaps in UK defence budgets, a minimum target of 3 per cent of GDP spent on defence would be better. At the very least, the UK should maintain an army that can credibly meet operational commitments to NATO in the event of a crisis. It must ensure sufficient funding for AUKUS, and for the Global Combat Air Programme with Italy and Japan. Even if defence spending in other areas is constrained, the government must address problems of wasteful procurement and inadequate recruitment. It should prioritize defence and strategic investments that strengthen the UK’s science and research base and that promote development of critical technologies.

The price of this will, of course, be reduced spending on welfare, education and so on.

Starmer has not drawn back on his support for Netanyahu in Israel or Zelensky in Ukraine.

Regarding the latter, former Royal Marine Colonel Alastair Carns, who resigned his commission to contest Birmingham Selly Oak for Labour, stated in the second week of the general election campaign in regards to Ukraine:

There will be no change in policy. If nothing else, there will be a doubling down on the support of Ukraine. Whether that’s building international consensus in Europe, gifting of equipment and capability, so Labour is fully in behind this.

This includes support for British supplied missiles being used to hot targets inside Russia, despite President Putin warning Russia will retaliate against British targets. In other words Starmer and Labour support a policy risking nuclear war.

One of the first major decisions Starmer may be faced with is how to respond to a Russian reprisal attack on British installations or personnel in Ukraine. It’s a chilling thought.

1. Mark Phythian, The Labour Party, War and International Relations 1945–2006, Routledge, 2007, P3.
2. Cecil Bloom, The British Labour Party and Palestine, 1917—1948, Jewish Historical Studies, Vol. 36, 1999-2001, P141-171
3. Kenneth 0. Morgan, Labour in Power. 1945-1951, Oxford University Press, 1985, P151