Labour has no shortage of woes on the domestic stage. The last week has seen flagship welfare reforms abandoned, new junior doctor strikes announced and intense speculation over Budget tax rises.
But many inside government draw consolation from Labour’s international performance. They argue – with some justification – that they have exceeded expectations by striking trade deals with the world’s largest economy (the US), the world’s fastest growing economy (India) and the UK’s largest trading partner (the EU).
This momentum has continued with the array of deals announced by Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron today. Chief among them was the long-mooted “one in, one out” migrant agreement, which for the first time will allow the UK to return people who cross the Channel in small boats to France (past Conservative governments tried and failed to achieve the same). In exchange, Britain will accept asylum seekers via a new legal route.
“It is right that we offer a haven to those in dire need,” said Starmer at his press conference with Macron at Nato’s Northwood base, a notably values-driven defence (some human rights group have condemned the new deal as draconian). He derided Nigel Farage for “taking pictures” and indulging in “performative politics” (the Reform leader has been in Dover today) and defined his mission as proving that “social democracy has the answers”.
Though estimates suggest that the pilot scheme will only lead to the return of around 50 people a week (more than 21,000 people have crossed the Channel so far this year), the government’s hope is that the programme will have a far wider deterrent effect. “This will show others trying to make the same journey that it will be in vain, and the jobs they have been promised in the UK will no longer exist,” said Starmer. The deal will go some way to reassuring Labour MPs who fear, as one put it to me, that the government has been “pushing hard on legal migration and not hard enough on boats and [asylum] hotels”.
But while immigration has dominated the politics of the UK-France summit, far more was announced today: the “coaliton of the willing” will have a new permanent headquarters in Paris to co-ordinate support for Ukraine and the UK and France will for the first time co-ordinate their nuclear deterrents (under the “Northwood Declaration”).
Government aides emphasise that these deals did not emerge in a vacuum – they were the result of advance work in opposition. Starmer, Rachel Reeves and David Lammy visited Emmanuel Macron in Paris in 2023; Lammy built alliances with key figures such as Macron ally Clément Beaune and Europe minister Benjamin Haddad and gave an extended interview to the French journal Le Grand Continent (of which Macron is a close reader) on his “progressive realism” doctrine.
The Anglo-French relationship, which had been strained by Brexit – repeatedly excoriated by Macron today – and the Aukus submarine deal (from which Paris was excluded), soon deepened inside government: last August, Lammy visited Israel and the occupied territories alongside French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné (the first joint visit between the countries since 2011) with subsequent trips to Ukraine (Lammy now rarely goes more than three days without speaking to his French counterpart). “Our philosophy is that you need to invest in your special relationships in order to get strategic benefits from them,” said one government insider.
As Starmer prepares for another “reset” – a cabinet away day will be held at Chequers tomorrow – here is one question that will be asked in Whitehall: can the lessons of Labour’s foreign successes help it overcome its domestic failures?
[See more: The left’s losing streak]
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