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French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron welcome Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he arrives to attend a reception for heads of state and government at the Elysee Palace before the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, in Paris, France August 28, 2024.
Keir Starmer “Bre-sets” UK’s relationship with Europe
The United Kingdom’s new Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to “turn a corner on Brexit” ahead of his quick European tour this week. Taking a jab at his Conservative predecessors — who campaigned for and managed the country’s divorce from the European Union — he vowed to “fix the broken relationships left behind by the previous government.”
Starmer arrived in Berlin on Wednesday to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In a press conference, the leaders announced a plan for a new German-UK cooperation agreement modeled after a similar 2010 deal with France that deepens defense ties over the next 50 years. The new agreement will also target energy, science, technology, and migration coordination, as well as an increase in intelligence sharing. Both countries aim to sign the treaty by 2025.
Starmer does not plan to try to reverse the 2016 Brexit decision and has said Britain will not rejoin the EU in his lifetime.
Still, Scholz said Wednesday that he was “delighted” with the UK’s pivot back to Europe. “We want to grasp this outstretched hand,” he said.
After Berlin, Starmer headed to Paris for the Paralympics opening ceremony on Wednesday night and to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.Police Officers walk past a burnt out police vehicle as they are deployed on the streets of Hartlepool following a violent protest.
Starmer responds to misinformation-fueled protests across Britain
The UK’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened an emergency Cobra committee meeting on Monday to address the anti-immigrant and far-right riots that have spread across England and Northern Ireland following the killing of three young girls last week.
In a major early test of his leadership, Starmer said he is establishing a “standing army” of specialized police officers and allocating more resources to the courts to handle the increased caseload related to the riots.
Starmer also said anyone inciting violence online could face legal consequences and called on social media companies to do more to crack down on extremism. He criticized Elon Musk’s amplification of inflammatory far-right posts about the riots, including one in which the billionaire wrote that “civil war is inevitable” under a video of the chaos.
Why are they rioting? After three girls were stabbed at a Taylor Swift-inspired dance class last Monday – 10 others were also injured – the suspect was inaccurately identified online as a Muslim asylum-seeker who had arrived in the UK by boat, spurring rioters to take to the streets shouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans. Over the weekend, mosques were attacked, cars were set ablaze, police officers were attacked and injured, and hundreds of rioters attempted to set a hotel housing asylum-seekers on fire.
Although Starmer’s Labour Party secured a significant majority over the Conservatives last month, the win did not erase the rise of right-wing populism in Britain. Eurasia Group’s Europe Managing Director Mujtaba Rahman says that beyond his immediate response, Starmer will “need to address the concerns over illegal immigration that have seen the rise of populism across Europe, including in the UK, and have been used by the lawless hard right to foment discord last week and this weekend.”