Keir Starmer needs to stop prioritising trips abroad

While making international connections is important, the Prime Minister has voters at home to answer to.

Photo by Stefan Rousseau - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Since becoming Prime Minister in July, Keir Starmer has made 11 foreign visits, more than any predecessor. Ahead of the Budget, he spoke with admirable clarity about the “harsh light of reality”. But the weeks of political turbulence, mishandled leaks from inside 10 Downing Street and crashing polls ram home the fact that every day the leader is away is a day lost at home.

Almost immediately after the election, Starmer was off for a (successful) summit in Washington; three days after that, it was Berlin and the Euros; Paris in July for the Olympics and President Macron; back to Berlin for Chancellor Scholz in August. Then a further visit to Paris for the Paralympics and more Macron in August, all while England was being ravaged by riots and most of the rest of the political world was taking a much-needed breather after the stress of the election campaign.

September, with the Labour conference in the middle of it, was almost as hectic. First, it was off to Dublin to meet the Taoiseach, Simon Harris, then again to Washington for more talks with President Biden on the Gaza and Ukraine crises. Starmer was back for only a couple of days mid-month before going to Rome to talk migration and missiles with Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister. Then back to the US and to New York for the UN General Assembly, even as the Liverpool party conference was winding up.

This is already a schedule that would reduce any normal person to exhausted collapse; they were also weeks when the tone and image of the new government were being set. October saw a visit to Brussels to meet Ursula von der Leyen, another to Berlin for a Scholz-Macron summit, and then the exhausting, politically pointless, epic 27-hour air-trek to Samoa for the Commonwealth heads-of-government meeting. November already has a visit to Rio in Brazil for the G20 in the diary.

I am not suggesting any of these visits, not even the footie, were indulgent “jollies” for the Prime Minister’s enjoyment. Nor, of course, that the business conducted during them was trivial. The world feels dangerous. Part of Keir Starmer’s message has always been that Britain would “be back” after Brexit on the world stage. Even if we have not been a significant player in the Middle East – and if on the Ukraine war, Labour policy has followed the Tories seamlessly – you can’t argue that direct engagement with Washington, Paris, Berlin and Kyiv has been wasted time. Starmer, it seems, has impressed fellow leaders.

But every hour away on a plane or in some foreign government office is an hour not spent grinding through policy with ministers and officials in Whitehall. It’s time not spent explaining life to wobbly Labour MPs. It’s time that could have been spent directed at voters struggling to see an optimistic message from their new government, but was instead spent elsewhere, mostly invisibly.

The danger for Starmer, never the most gregarious of politicians, is that he becomes increasingly remote; a leader literally “up there”. Forget, for a moment, Westminster. An effective prime minister needs an emotional connection with the electorate. He needs to be seen, heard, engaging with arguments all the time – and with relish. His journeying has been about our economic and security interests but these have been achievements of tone and connection, which make no visible impact on the lives of ordinary voters.

These are early days – but so far, the UK has had precisely zero impact on the Netanyahu government. After important meetings with Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky, the situation for Ukraine remains as perilously poised as it was in June. There has been little visible progress towards a new deal on trade or migration with the EU. (On this, Labour underestimates the public’s willingness for change: a genuinely useful and important defence deal signed with Germany caused not a ripple of protest or notice anywhere.)

Let me be fair. It would be unreasonable, after just a few months, to expect big changes anywhere in the world because a new government arrives in a country of Britain’s size. And the stronger personal relationships Starmer has formed may come to be seen as part of bigger diplomatic and economic achievements later.

But whether, for instance, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris becomes US president overwhelms everything else. That huge moment will alter our relations with the US, change the meaning of every past conversation between Starmer and EU leaders and may be life or death for independent Ukraine. It will also influence whether we are about to see full-scale war between Israel and Iran. Starmer behaves, criss-crossing global airspace, as a leading actor. But largely, these days, Britain is acted upon.

This applies even to the Commonwealth. With India, Bangladesh and South Africa choosing to attend the Brics+ summit, hosted by Vladimir Putin in Kazan, over the King and Keir Starmer in Samoa, this rival summitry seemed a moment of true symbolism in the changing shape of world power.

For King Charles and Britain’s international aid and diplomatic elite, the Commonwealth remains a sacred and precious thing. Fifty-six nations and 2.7 billion people, countries with shared values and systems and a general mood of decency, conspicuously absent in rival authoritarian power-structures – what’s not to like?

But for domestic voters it now means almost nothing, except demands that they feel ashamed of their forebears and are urged to find money for slavery reparations far beyond what this cash-strapped nation can possibly afford. In crude domestic political terms, Starmer going to Samoa was a waste of his time.

Am I saying that Starmer should have refused to go? No, not really: this was too long planned and too important to the monarchy for a new prime minister to bypass. The anti-Labour media was hopping with anger after Samoa over reparations: had Starmer not gone, it would have been dancing with anger over “Labour snub to King”. To be a leader is to handle impossible choices.

But No 10 now needs to cast a tougher, colder eye over future foreign-travel requests – an “is this journey really necessary?” approach. There is a strong sense of grip regained at the heart of government, a fresh focus. This must now be extended to Starmer’s agenda, asking more ruthlessly about the impact on voters. East, west, home’s best.

That’s an unpopular thing to say in Whitehall. British leaders love summits. Leaf through the fat memoirs and count the colour snaps taken in exotic locations with foreign leaders. Rubbing shoulders with each other gives them a warm, clubby vindication. The snotty rudeness they face at home, the daily impertinence, is mostly absent. It’s how national leadership is supposed to feel.

The press and broadcasters also like overseas trips – the stale glamour of huddles with the Prime Minister high above the Atlantic, the brief flashes of tourism between London deadlines, the welcome relief from predictable parliamentary days. Downing Street advisers enjoy these trips too, not least because they can physically surround the boss day in, day out.

But for wider politics, the calculus is different. In hard times, fighting a hostile media, as a new government struggles to find its feet and its voice, the absence of a leader, even for a few days, is noticeable and damaging. Since early August, it’s been just too much. That hasn’t been good for Downing Street. Keir Starmer is unlikely to be at his best when perpetually jet-lagged and exhausted. More can be done remotely or by foreign ministers without damaging Britain’s standing. The tug of abroad is urgent and hard to resist. But home is where the voters are. Who is speaking for home?