Starmer rejects false choice between Trump’s US and EU in key speech
Keir Starmer has “utterly rejected” the idea that the UK must choose between the United States and Europe when Donald Trump comes to power, arguing that it is in the national interest to work with both.The prime minister said the UK would “never turn away” from its relationship with the US, despite the difficulties the new administration could pose, as it had been the “cornerstone” of security and prosperity for over a century.Yet he would also continue to “reset” Britain’s relationship with Europe, the country’s biggest trading partner, he said, after years of neglect post-Brexit, as strong bilateral links were vital for growth and security.“Against the backdrop of these dangerous times, the idea that we must choose between our allies, that somehow we’re with either America or Europe, is plain wrong,” he said.“I reject it utterly.
[Clement] Attlee did not choose between allies.[Winston] Churchill did not choose.The national interest demands that we work with both.”His remarks come after foreign policy and trade experts warned that Trump could pressure the UK to effectively pick sides between it and the European Union if he presses ahead with threatened trade tariffs when he takes over next year.But despite Labour’s previously tense relationship with Trump, Downing Street sources said they felt equipped to deal with the “unpredictability and noise” that has already started coming their way from Washington.
Starmer’s team, they continued, has spent years preparing for the possibility of a Republican victory – building relationships and, crucially, bridges,However, as some of Elon Musk’s criticism of the prime minister has shown, the usual rules of diplomacy no longer apply,Instead, the government believes it can capitalise on the global uncertainty that Trump’s presidency creates, with the new administration likely to reverse the US position in conflict zones and embark on a more protectionist approach on trade,In a major foreign policy speech at the lord mayor’s banquet in London, Starmer insisted the UK could be a “constant and responsible actor in turbulent times”, with the return of Trump expected to shake up the global order, including in Ukraine and the Middle East,“I recall Philip Larkin’s words about her late majesty Queen Elizabeth as a ‘constant good’ – a strong, still point in a changing world – because I think it also reflects Britain and the nation’s role today,” he said.
“To be a constant and responsible actor in turbulent times.To be the soundest ally and to be determined, always, in everything we do.”In his speech, the prime minister said he would “never turn away” from the UK’s special relationship with the US, even though many inside government privately believe it will prove a difficult path to navigate in coming years.“This is not about sentimentality,” he said.“It is about hard-headed realism.
Time and again the best hope for the world and the surest way to serve our mutual national interest has come from our two nations working together.It still does.”Starmer has also vowed to turn the page on the UK’s relationship with European partners, putting the fractious relations of the Brexit years behind it.Since taking office he has visited the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin and met the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris.He also hosted 50 leaders from across the continent for the European Political Community meeting within days of taking office.
He told his audience that the government had already improved relations with Britain’s European neighbours, with a “shared ambition to work more closely where necessary”, including through a new security pact covering foreign affairs and defence.“This is about looking forward, not back,” Starmer added.“There will be no return to freedom of movement, no return to the customs union and no return to the single market.Instead we will find practical, agile ways to cooperate which serve the national interest.”Ministers are hiring a new EU negotiator to act as a representative for all of the UK’s dealings with the bloc ahead of renewal talks on the trade and cooperation agreement, which underpins the post-Brexit relationship, in 2025.
The government has said that security is the bedrock on which the UK economy rests.“There is no greater responsibility for this government,” the prime minister said.He does not, however, plan to set out a timetable to reach 2.5% of GDP on defence spending until next year.After becoming the first British leader in six years to meet Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, last month, Starmer argued that the UK could not “look the other way” on China, and instead planned to “keep talking” to Beijing.
Trump is proposing to slap huge 60% import tariffs on China.Trade experts expect that the US will call on the EU and UK to follow suit – a demand that both will strongly resist for their own trade reasons.The UK is seeking to increase trade with Beijing while also stepping up efforts to find greater ways to access the EU single market.
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Hello, and welcome to TechScape. Happy belated Thanksgiving to my American readers, and I hope everyone enjoys a good holiday party this weekend. I’m excited to bake Grittibänz for the Feast of St Nicholas. This week in tech: Australia incites a panic, Bluesky poses the question of custom feeds, and the online things that brought me joy on holiday.On Thursday, Australia passed a law banning children under 16 from social networks
Meta says it has taken down about 20 covert influence operations in 2024
Meta has intervened to take down about 20 covert influence operations around the world this year, it has emerged – though the tech firm said fears of AI-fuelled fakery warping elections had not materialised in 2024.Nick Clegg, the president of global affairs at the company that runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said Russia was still the No 1 source of the adversarial online activity but said in a briefing it was “striking” how little AI was used to try to trick voters in the busiest ever year for elections around the world.The former British deputy prime minister revealed that Meta, which has more than 3 billion users, had to take down just over 500,000 requests to generate images on its own AI tools of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, JD Vance and Joe Biden in the month leading up to US election day.But the firm’s security experts had to tackle a new operation using fake accounts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal at the rate of more than one every three weeks. The “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” incidents included a Russian network using dozens of Facebook accounts and fictitious news websites to target people in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan
‘It feels like a startup energy’: Google’s UK boss on the advent of AI
While the tech giant wrestles with an US antitrust case, its managing director in London is pushing hard on the commercial possibilities of artificial intelligenceGoogle’s central London office cost as much as a tech unicorn and the company’s UK boss, Debbie Weinstein, says it pulses with a similar spirit.“It feels like a startup energy,” she says.However, we are meeting on a morning when Google has been threatened with a reckoning reserved for members of the corporate establishment, not tech ingenues: a breakup.Hours earlier, the US Department of Justice had asked a federal judge to order the sale of Google’s Chrome browser, along with a host of other actions including making its search index – a database of all the webpages it has crawled – available to competitors. It follows a ruling by the same judge in August that the $2tn company has built an illegal monopoly in the search market
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‘Russia can turn the lights off’: how the UK is preparing for cyberwar
The Swedish government checklist for surviving a war would not have looked out of place decades ago: bottled water; sleeping bags; extra batteries; enough cash for a week; and non-perishable food such as rice and cereal.Without being mentioned in name, Russia once more lurks in the background as it did during the cold war. But the nature of the threat it poses in the pamphlet, called “In case of crisis or war”, has changed.Alongside raising the possibility of “an armed attack against Sweden”, the guide also mentions “cyber-attacks” and “disinformation campaigns”.As well as coping with the threat of nuclear conflict or an armed border incursion, Europe must now contend with a very 21st-century foe: cyberwarfare
UK underestimates threat of cyber-attacks from hostile states and gangs, says security chief
The UK is underestimating the severity of the online threat it faces from hostile states and criminal gangs, the country’s cybersecurity chief will warn.Richard Horne, the head of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, will cite a trebling of “severe” incidents amid Russian “aggression and recklessness” and China’s “highly sophisticated” digital operations.In his first major speech as the agency’s chief, Horne will say on Tuesday that hostile activity in UK cyberspace has increased in “frequency, sophistication and intensity” from enemies who want to cause maximum disruption and destruction.In a speech at the NCSC’s London HQ, Horne, who took on the role in October, will point to “the aggression and recklessness of cyber-activity we see coming from Russia” and how “China remains a highly sophisticated cyber-actor, with increasing ambition to project its influence beyond its borders”.“And yet, despite all this, we believe the severity of the risk facing the UK is being widely underestimated,” he will say
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