Keir Starmer rejects notion that U.K. has to choose between Europe and America

U.K. PM Starmer rejects U.S. vs. Europe narrative, emphasizes cooperation with both for national interest and security.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer strongly rejected the idea that Britain had to choose between the U.S. and its allies in Europe.

Mr. Starmer is one of several European leaders navigating Mr. Trump’s imminent return to power.  Mr. Trump is expected to meet several Heads of State on Saturday when he visits Paris for the re-opening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. As U.S. President, Mr. Trump had a testy relationship with the European Union (EU), over trade, defence expenditure and positions on Russia and Ukraine

“That somehow we are with either America or Europe is plain wrong. I reject it utterly,” Mr. Starmer said during a foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London on Monday evening.

“The national interest demands that we work with both,” he added.

Mr. Starmer said the U.K. would “never turn away” from its relationship with the U.S., calling the bilateral relationship the “cornerstone” of the U.K.’s security and prosperity for over a century.

The Prime Minister said the two countries being close was not based on sentimentality but “hard-headed realism”, as he highlighted areas of cooperation that were important in current times: tech, AI, security and military cooperation.

At a dinner at the Trump Tower in Manhattan on September 26, Mr. Starmer had told Mr. Trump, then a presidential candidate, that his government “would invest more deeply than ever” in the U.K.-U.S. relationship. This was the first meeting between the two men.