Perhaps the most unexpected move of the government’s reshuffle was Yvette Cooper’s shift out of the Home Office and into King Charles Street. Her appointment as Foreign Secretary marks a dramatic change, and she inherits both an opportunity and a daunting set of challenges.
The brief is one of the hardest in government. Britain is neither the power it once was, nor can it retreat into itself. The foreign secretary must balance domestic demands with international turbulence, finding a way to secure prosperity and security at home while navigating a fractured and volatile world.
The context Cooper inherits could hardly be more different from that of Labour’s last stint in government. Back in 1997, the path felt clear: deepen multilateralism, integrate into the rules-based order, and reap the win-wins. Today, multipolarity defines the landscape, the West holds less wealth and influence, and the certainties of the past have vanished. Projections suggest that – were a new G7 of the world’s richest countries to be constructed in 2050 – only the US would still make the cut. This is the world Cooper must now shape policy in.
The new Foreign Secretary has a large, and tough, brief to quickly get on top of. But what should she keep from David Lammy’s legacy, what should she go further on, and what should she do differently?
What should Cooper keep?
Lammy leaves behind not only unfinished business, but also a clear intellectual framework: progressive realism, “the pursuit of ideals without the delusions about what is achievable.” His foreign policy showed that ideals could still guide Britain’s role abroad, but without nostalgia or illusion.
At the heart of his alternative approach was showing that foreign policy could deliver progressive objectives at home. Lammy prioritised Labour’s missions – especially growth and climate – linking foreign policy to delivery of domestic priorities.
Aligning behind the government’s central agenda sounds like an obvious step, but it isn’t typical. Foreign policy has often felt characterised by side projects – efforts to demonstrate British values or British power in less politically “risky” places – places where the people don’t vote for you.
In practice for Lammy, this meant fighting kleptocracy and tackling dirty money. Dirty money damages working peoples’ interests both in the places it is taken from (reducing tax take and public spending), but also in the places that it arrives (as illegal wealth pushes up house prices, for example). Dirty money is also deeply unfair. It sees criminals and cheats prosper, penalising those who follow the rules.
Lammy’s six-point plan on illicit finance sought to align domestic and international policy to benefit working people at home and abroad, and he had announced a major UK conference on the topic for next year. This was practical, progressive realism in action.
This more functional focus on people was also reflected in the reforms he sought to make to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). At times he seemed frustrated with its grandeur, seeking instead a straightforward, outward facing institution, better connected to the British public and the world. His decision to make the FCDO “more foreign, less office” by shifting staff abroad felt illustrative. Lammy’s FCDO was intended to talk less about the world and more to it.
Lammy’s realism also helped Britain manage the Trump administration. He moved from a friendship with Barack Obama to building what feels like a relationship of genuine warmth with Trump’s right-hand man, Vice President JD Vance. The Trump administration poses existential risks to the world progressives want to build, but Lammy and the Labour government rightly recognised they are likely to achieve more of their goals for the UK and the world by starting on the front foot rather than with conflict.
What should Cooper go further on?
The cuts to the overseas development assistance (ODA) budget caused real harm to the world’s poorest people. And it had geopolitical implications. Another strand of Lammy’s progressive realism was a desire to fundamentally reset Britain’s relationships with the countries of the global south. In a multipolar world, attitudes of dismissal or paternalism to large swathes of the world are outdated, and Lammy was determined to consign them to history.
ODA cuts damaged this work. This was not because aid was always loved by partner countries, but because the decision felt like a continuation of British unpredictability and inward focus since Brexit.
Lammy sought to combat the cuts with a new approach to partnership that was focused on other levers: leveraging finance, drawing on soft power like our scientists and universities, and making UK policy – on issues like dirty money – work better for partners as well as ourselves. The approach could deliver real impact, but it will need serious commitment and focus to deliver. Cooper will need to give it her full backing.
What should Cooper do differently?
Most fundamentally, there is Gaza. Yes, there were signs that Lammy was pushing for tougher positions than the government collectively were willing to take, for example his March statement that Israel had broken international law (later rowed back by Downing Street). And yes, the UK cannot solve the crisis in Gaza alone.
But the magnitude of suffering demands more. Cooper will face the same internal and international context as Lammy but she must secure cabinet commitment to greater action; and then use that commitment to push on every possible door to drive change. There are signs that No 10 is starting to move on this. But the ever-deepening horror on the ground demands ever-deepening efforts to secure humanitarian relief, the release of the hostages, a durable ceasefire, and movement towards a sustainable and just peace.
Looking ahead
In action, Lammy’s progressive realism attracted criticism, mostly that it contained too much reality and not enough progress. But as an approach it was honest about the world we confront, and it retained a focus on values.
Cooper would do well to start from the same point. Foreign policy must support jobs, prices and safety for working people here in the UK. But it must do so without the self-deceptions of the past. Britain does not have almost limitless power or influence. The Foreign Secretary can’t lean on a simple globalising prescription for wins at home and abroad. And she can’t assume implicit public consent to grand ideological projects abroad.
But she must also recognise that simply shrinking Britain’s foreign policy project to immediate domestic delivery will also not work. Britain has to contend with the grinding of the global gears – the disintegration of the old order, and the continuing rebalancing of global power. Lammy’s focus on resetting with the global South sought to contend with some of this. Our new Foreign Secretary will similarly need to keep a long-term view. She must avoid transactionalism, and work instead to position Britain not just to find a way through a dark and chaotic world, but to bring some rays of light and order.
[See also: How much danger is Keir Starmer in?]
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