Before the British prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, was appointed director of public prosecutions for England and Wales in 2008, he was the joint head of London’s Doughty Street Chambers. Its website says its ethos has always been “to improve access to justice and promote human rights and civil liberties through the law”, which sounds impressive. Having specialized in human rights, international law and crime, Starmer became a renowned expert in all three. He should, therefore, have no difficulty in identifying breaches of international law, particularly when they have criminal overtones.
It, therefore, beggared belief that when the US invaded Venezuela on Jan 3 and kidnapped its president and first lady, Starmer equivocated over the legal position. It should have been as plain as a pikestaff, particularly as American forces killed approximately 100 people, including 32 Cubans. Yet when asked to condemn the US actions, Starmer ran a mile, calling the situation “complicated”. Although the invasion was as flagrant a breach of the “international rules-based order” as can be imagined, all Starmer could say was that it was “for the US to set out its justifications for the actions it has taken”. If this sounded pathetic, it was.
If nothing else, it showed that Starmer was afraid of saying (or doing) anything that might upset US President Donald Trump, and worse was to follow.
Starmer’s response sent a clear message to the US that although the United Kingdom is supposedly its closest ally, it was not prepared to take a stand when America transgressed. Indeed, Trump did not even bother to alert Starmer to what was afoot in Venezuela, let alone consult him in advance. This spoke volumes about the UK’s relevance in America’s new world order. It showed that when push came to shove, all the “soft power” massaging that Trump received from King Charles III and Starmer last September during his state visit to the UK counted for nothing.
On Jan 12, moreover, Trump confirmed that the US would take Greenland from Denmark “one way or the other”, with military force being an option. He told The New York Times that he might have to make a “choice” between preserving NATO and annexing Greenland. It was extraordinary that one NATO member would contemplate attacking another, but this is the new reality.
To drive the point home, the US vice-president, JD Vance, warned Europe that Trump’s threats had to be taken “seriously”. However, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who weirdly calls Trump “daddy”, was delusional, insisting there was “no crisis”. For Greenland’s sake, he will hopefully wise up very soon.
As Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that an armed attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack on all of them, it might have been expected that Starmer (and Rutte) would have reacted decisively to the US threat. At the very least, he could have denounced the threat and offered to send British troops to Greenland to help Denmark counter any attacks on its sovereign territory.
After all, even though Ukraine is not a NATO member, Starmer has done all he can to help it in its conflict with Russia. Apart from committing 3 billion pounds ($4 billion) a year in military aid to Ukraine until 2030-31 and authorizing the firing of British-made Storm Shadow missiles into Russia, Starmer has said he will also send troops to Ukraine if conditions are right — a move denounced by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who has repeatedly warned against “poking the Russian bear with a stick”.
True friends are supposed to spell out home truths when their partners go astray, but not Starmer, and it is not hard to see why. Nobody will ever forget the groveling way he gave Trump the royal invitation to a UK state visit when he visited the White House, or the demeaning spectacle of him crawling around on the ground at the G7 summit in Canada after Trump inadvertently dropped his papers. His desperation to please Trump is remarkable and may help explain why the latest YouGov poll (Jan 9) found that he was even less popular with the British public than Hamas (with unfavorability ratings of 74 and 63 percent respectively)
Although Starmer was prepared to sign up to a joint European statement that “Greenland belongs to its people”, and that it was for Denmark and Greenland — “and them only” — to decide on issues involving the two places, he has yet to provide anything remotely resembling solid support to Denmark (even France, as a gesture of solidarity, has said it will open a consulate in Greenland, with Sweden promising troops and Germany a reconnaissance team). Notwithstanding his eagerness to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, Starmer has made no parallel commitment to Denmark, a long-standing NATO ally, for reasons that are less than creditable. Although he delights in provoking Russia, he is afraid of poking Uncle Sam.
On the rare occasions when Starmer is not in lockstep with the US, he seeks safety in numbers. When, for example, Trump sought to end the Ukraine conflict last year with a bold peace plan, Starmer rallied the “Coalition of the Willing” to encourage Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to keep on fighting. However, Trump is desperate to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and if Starmer’s belligerence kills off his chances of gaining it, the backlash may not be pretty.
Under a 1952 Danish law, its troops must defend the country against attacks without awaiting authorization, and Copenhagen has confirmed the law “remains in force”. But the question now is whether they will fight US aggression in Greenland alone, or whether British (and other NATO) troops will have their backs. As yet, there has been no signal from Starmer that, beyond a few platitudes, he will do anything to help Denmark deter US aggression. His silence will undoubtedly embolden military planners in America’s recently renamed “Department of War”.
According to the UK Defence Journal (Jan 10), Starmer has also ruled out deploying a Joint Expeditionary Force to defend Greenland. This suggests that either he does not, like Rutte, take Trump’s threats to invade Denmark’s sovereign territory seriously, or that he does but is unwilling, as over Venezuela, to take a principled stand against US aggression. Either way, it is a pitiful fall from grace for the one-time international human rights lawyer.
True friends are supposed to spell out home truths when their partners go astray, but not Starmer, and it is not hard to see why. Nobody will ever forget the groveling way he gave Trump the royal invitation to a UK state visit when he visited the White House, or the demeaning spectacle of him crawling around on the ground at the G7 summit in Canada after Trump inadvertently dropped his papers. His desperation to please Trump is remarkable and may help explain why the latest YouGov poll (Jan 9) found that he was even less popular with the British public than Hamas (with unfavorability ratings of 74 and 63 percent respectively).
Far from distancing the UK from US excesses, Starmer has even aided and abetted them. When, for example, US forces seized a Russian-flagged vessel (The Marinera) in the Atlantic on Jan 7, they were allowed to use UK air bases and were supported by a British spy plane and ship.
Although, as he must have known, the seizure was tantamount to an act of international piracy, Starmer could not help himself. He clearly relished another opportunity to poke the Russian bear, possible consequences notwithstanding.
It was, therefore, little wonder that the new head of MI6 (Britain’s foreign intelligence service), Blaise Metreweli, declared “We are now operating in a space between peace and war” (Dec 15). Taking her lead from Starmer, she obsessed about Russia, which wanted to “harass NATO members”. However, she avoided mentioning the existential threats posed to NATO members by US designs on Greenland and Canada (which Trump wants to make America’s 51st state).
Although Metreweli waxed lyrical about the menace posed by an “aggressive, expansionist and revisionist Russia”, she ignored, despite overwhelming evidence, the threat to world peace posed by an “aggressive, expansionist and revisionist America”. Such willful blindness may help explain Starmer’s inability to grasp the real threats facing the world order, let alone respond effectively to them.
To be fair, Metreweli has yet to embrace the China-hostile narrative of Sir Ken “Reds under the beds” McCallum, her MI5 (domestic security) counterpart. In a bizarre outburst last October, McCallum said the threat from states like China was as bad as or worse than terrorism. Although it must be hoped Metreweli will not plumb similar depths, anything is possible. After all, in the murky world of British espionage, paranoia is king, and once she tires of slagging off Russia, she could well target China.
In the meantime, on his past form, there is no reason to suppose that Starmer will tell Trump to keep his hands off the other sovereign states he has threatened. However, instead of trying to keep the conflict going in Ukraine in the hope of destabilizing Moscow (NATO’s long-term aim), he should be doing his utmost to uphold the “international rules-based order”. If he wants to restore British prestige, he should make clear to Trump that the UK will never tolerate the US arbitrarily taking over Greenland, Canada or Panama, or engineering regime change in Colombia, Cuba or Mexico.
Moreover, as Starmer’s trip to Beijing is reportedly imminent, he should demonstrate that he has some spine when it comes to Anglo-Chinese relations. Although, for example, the US opposes a new Chinese embassy in London (despite having recently acquired its own), he must ensure the project is speedily approved (after years of delay). If Starmer can be his own man, put British interests first and expand cooperation with China, he may yet salvage a little of the credibility he has squandered by his subservience to Trump. Even if this upsets McCallum and his saber rattlers, it will be a price worth paying.
The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
