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People attend an anti-immigration protest, in London, Britain, October 26, 2024.
UK prime minister promises border crackdown
The UK Labour Party, as the expression goes, hits different now. At least when it comes to immigration.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the party’s leader, lambasted what he called the UK’s post-Brexit “open borders” policies and promised a comprehensive crackdown on immigration.
This capped a sea change in the party’s views under Starmer, who took over from his (much) further left and more pro-immigration predecessor Jeremy Corbyn in 2020, and led the party back to power for the first time in 14 years in July.
The context: Since the UK “Brexited” from the EU, immigration numbers have soared under successive Conservative governments. Last year, net migration hit a record high of 906,000 people. Immigration debates have roiled the country with particular fury in recent months. August saw violent clashes between xenophobic mobs and immigrant gangs, stoked in part by online misinformation. The government's response, which included the arrests of several people for stoking anti-immigrant violence online, drew harsh criticism from anti-immigration groups and free speech activists.
The bigger story: Across the continent, just as across the pond, backlashes against mass immigration are a defining feature of politics. No longer solely a right-wing issue, parties from all points on the political spectrum must find a politically tenable position on the issue.Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts at a Faith Leaders Roundtable at Zebulon, Georgia, U.S., October 23, 2024.
Labo(u)r of love or “election interference” from the UK?
Donald Trump’s campaign has accused Britain’s Labour Party of “blatant” interference in the US election after volunteers from the party traveled to the US to campaign for his opponent, Kamala Harris.
Campaigning while foreign isn’t necessarily illegal, but the Trump campaign’s complaint with US election authorities suggests the Labour Party funded the travel, which would be unlawful. A LinkedIn post by a Labour Party organizer had promised to “sort” (read: pay) for the volunteers’ “housing.”
This isn’t new. British volunteers have often campaigned in the US, with Labour supporting Democratic candidates, and Tories traveling for Republicans. Former UK PM Liz Truss has stumped for Trump in the US, as has far-right Reform Party leader Nigel Farage.
The incident raises two issues. First, if Trump wins, it could irritate relations between his White House and the UK’s current Labour government. Prime Minister Keir Starmer doesn’t think so, but Trump could well remember it.
But second, what’s “election interference” anyway? Beyond directly altering vote tallies or hacking the campaigns, are there gray areas between free speech and malicious meddling? Does posting polarizing lies about the candidates constitute “interference”? Is it only a problem if it comes from abroad? And how about the outsized impact of billionaires on our politics or the perception that media bias – on airwaves or algorithms – is its own form of tipping the scales?
This is something we’ll look at closely in the final days of the race – but first we want to hear from you: How would you define “election interference” and what would you do to stop it? Let us know here.
A 'coal is dead' placard is seen during the demonstration. Activists from Friends Of The Earth and other environmental groups gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice as the legal challenge to the Whitehaven coal mine in Cumbria begins.
Hard Numbers: UK buries coal, Austria’s far right surges, Le Pen faces trial, UN extends but doesn’t expand Haiti mission, Russia spends more on guns (less on butter)
142: After 142 years, the UK government closed the country’s last coal-fired power plant on Monday night. Coal power was a critical factor in the British-born Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, but it wasn’t until 1882 that the British opened the first public coal power plant. The closure is part of the government’s plan to generate 100% of Great Britain’s energy from renewable sources by 2030. Our favorite British coal story? How coal pollution changed the color of the Peppered Moths of Manchester.
29.2: Austria’s Freedom Party became the first far-right party to win an election in the country since World War II, after taking 29.2% of the vote in Sunday’s election by appealing to Austrians worried about immigration, inflation, and the Ukraine war. But it’s a familiar story in Europe these days: A far-right party takes a plurality of the vote, only to find that it lacks an obvious coalition partner to form a government. The incumbent Austrian People’s Party has said it will only work with the Freedom Party if party boss Herbert Kickl renounces any cabinet position. That’s a tough sell – Kickl says he wants to be chancellor.
9: Meanwhile, elsewhere in European right-wing news, Marine Le Pen, the former leader and top candidate of France’s National Rally party, began a nine-week trial in which she and two dozen other party officials are accused of misusing EU funds by using them to pay party staff for political work. Le Pen says the payments were legitimate. If convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison, fines of several million euros, and possibly being deemed ineligible to run for office. She is considered a top contender in the 2027 presidential election.
1: The UN Security council agreed unanimously on Monday to authorize the UN-backed security force in Haiti for one more year. But a US proposal to make the mission – currently a Kenya-led volunteer force – into a formal UN peacekeeping operation was blocked by Russia and China, which said the current force needs more time to find its footing. Haiti, for its part, has called for a peacekeeping operation as the Kenyan-led force struggles to subdue the powerful gangs that have taken control over vast swathes of the capital.
25: Russia will boost defense spending by 25% next year, as Vladimir Putin doubles down both on his invasion of Ukraine and on the deeper militarization of the economy at home. Social spending, meanwhile, is set to fall by nearly 20%. Heavy spending on defense has helped to insulate Russia’s economy from the effects of Western sanctions, with GDP growing 3.6% last year and forecasters predicting a similar outcome this year. How secure is Putin? Read our recent piece on the endless ends of the Russian president.Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria Starmer walk outside a polling station during the general election in London, Britain, on July 4, 2024.
Brits say bye-bye to Tory rule
British voters put a new spin on the Fourth of July today, freeing themselves from 14 years of Conservative rule. Labour won in a historic landslide, making party chief Keir Starmer the United Kingdom’s new prime minister.
In May, following news that inflation had slowed to 2.3%, then-PM Rishi Sunak called for a July election even though he could have waited until the end of the year. He tried to capitalize on the good inflation news and has spent the last six weeks campaigning up and down the country in a bid to win support.
But polls have consistently favored Labour by a wide margin. In the end, Labour secured 412 seats to the Conservatives’ 120. On Friday, King Charles invited Starmer to form a new UK government.
What will change? Domestically, Starmer has pledged to lead a “pro-business and pro-worker” government while facing “hard choices” for public spending. The party plans to work on “wealth creation” and, among other goals, aims to create a new publicly owned clean power company. In terms of foreign policy, Starmer is pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine, like Sunak, but he will take a different approach to the European Union to rebuild trust in the post-Brexit era.
Will the UK rejoin the EU? Not so fast. Starmer says he has no plans for a “Breturn” and does not believe the country will rejoin in his lifetime. That said he’s still looking to reset ties with the EU. According to Ian Bremmer, Starmer has developed a strong rapport with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and intends to expand Britain’s foreign policy cooperation. “He plans to propose a wide-ranging UK-EU security pact as well as bilateral defense agreements with Germany and France,” Bremmer wrote for GZERO.
“Longer term, he wants to return to something akin to a customs union in all but name.”
British opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer attends a Labour general election campaign event, in Norton Canes, Britain July 2, 2024.
The UK is on the cusp of a big change
The United Kingdom is holding its first general election in roughly half a decade on Thursday, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – who’s made a series of blunders while campaigning – and his Conservative Party are bracing for a major defeat.
Change is in the air. After 14 years in power and overseeing everything from Brexit to the UK’s pandemic response, the Conservatives are seemingly on the verge of being knocked off their perch. Polling has consistently shown Keir Starmer’s Labour Party with a sizable lead.
What happens after? Starmer, likely the next British prime minister, is a centrist and former human rights lawyer. Though he’s widely characterized as dull, he has been credited with reshaping Labour and making it more palatable to UK voters by shifting the party away from the far-left politics of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.
Starmer has pledged to lead a government that’s “pro-business and pro-worker” but also says Labour will face “hard choices” for public spending. The party’s manifesto says it will focus on “wealth creation” and, among other goals, Labour aims to create a new publicly owned clean power company.
Ian Explains: How political chaos in the UK, France, & Canada impacts the US
Big political changes are coming in Western democracies, is the US ready to deal with the fallout? Voters in the United Kingdom and France will head to the polls in the coming weeks after UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron called snap national elections. Both political gambles could have a huge impact on everything from the West’s collective ability to deal with climate change to the AI revolution and countering China’s growing influence.
On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down the tumultuous landscapes of French and British politics right now, with an eye on upcoming elections in Canada and the United States.
In Britain, Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party is almost guaranteed to lose control of the government. In France, the far-right National Rally Party is highly favored to win the most seats in the National Assembly. A similar story is playing out in Canada, setting the stage for a potentially brutal electoral defeat next year.
So why should Americans care about all this political chaos so far from home? Watch Ian Explains for more on what’s at stake with so many big elections on the horizon.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
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Britain's Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer addresses the start of the National Annual Women's Conference, ahead of the start of Britain's Labour Party annual conference, in Liverpool, Britain, October 7, 2023.
Who is Keir Starmer?
Keir Starmer will likely become the UK’s prime minister not long after the July 4 election. Over nine years in parliament, he’s helped shift the Labour Party from the ideological rigidity of theJeremy Corbyn era onto a path and platform that can win enough centrist voters to take power.
On Thursday, Starmer introducedhis party’s latest manifesto with a pledge to help Britonscreate wealth: “If you take nothing else away from this today, let it be this,” he told a mostly enthusiastic audience. “We are pro-business and pro-worker. A plan for wealth creation.”
With its de-emphasis on big spending initiatives, some will compare Starmer to former Labour PM Tony Blair. But Blair was a sunnier and more charismatic figure. Starmer, who left work as a human rights lawyer to pursue politics in 2015, must make a virtue of his reputation for seriousness, caution, and a focus on practical means for attaining tangible gains. His own working-class roots help him connect with working-class voters.
As he admitted in arecent interview, “I’ve achieved less as a politician than I have at any other time in my life.” That’s why, he says, he wants to lead a government rather than the opposition.
Starmer is also the biggest beneficiary of voter exhaustion with 14 years of Conservative Party dominance. As a result, we’ll soon know even more about him.
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Rishi Sunak drowing.
Sunak’s gamble leaves Tories on the edge of defeat
A week ago, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gambled his career, his legacy, and the future of the Conservative government by calling earlier-than-expected snap elections on July 4 – a seemingly no-win decision given that his party has been underwater by some 20 points in the polls.
Speaking of underwater, standing outside No. 10 Downing St. in the pouring rain without an umbrella (not the first nor last piece of evidence that his aides must really dislike him), the utterly soaked prime minister described his premature date with destiny as “a moment for Britain to choose its future.” Sunak argued that the most geopolitically dangerous global environment in decades (fact-check: true) calls for the stability and predictability at the helm of the UK government that only Tories can deliver (although “stability” and “predictability” are surely not the first two words that come to mind when I think of the last several years of mostly shambolic Conservative rule). The address also previewed a bitterly personal campaign against Labour leader Keir Starmer, accusing him of being willing to say anything to win power and then go back on his word (aka a politician).
The prime minister defied calls from a majority of his party’s MPs to wait to stage the poll until the fall, when they hoped (and most analysts expected) voters would start to feel the benefits of an improving economy and public opinion might have moved in the Tories’ favor. Instead, Sunak used last week’s marked drop in inflation to 2.3% – slightly higher than forecast by the Bank of England but still meeting the PM’s electoral promise to halve it – as the springboard for a six-week (Americans can only dream!) election campaign. The PM was told by his advisors that inflation had bottomed out and would rise again over the coming months – and that reduced fiscal space for tax cuts later in the year would reduce his room for maneuver down the line. This made him fear that the economic outlook was never going to look better than now.
Sunak’s decision to go for broke stunned Tory MPs who had expected him to at least wait until after the first flights deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda had taken off, allowing him to go some way to meet another of his signature campaign pledges: “stopping the boats.” But the prospect of further implementation delays due to legal challenges after getting the law passed through parliament in April, and thousands more refugees crossing the English Channel in small dinghies during the summer months, was another reason why Sunak opted for an early election.
Another factor in Sunak’s shock decision to call the first July election since 1945, against the advice of most Tory MPs and strategists and despite consistently trailing in the polls by 20 points, was his entrenched belief that Starmer is a disingenuous flip-flopper whose soft support would crumble under the intense scrutiny of an imminent election. Hard work and good debate performances, Sunak’s thinking went, could persuade the higher-than-usual number of undecided voters (roughly 20%) to back the Tories – however reluctantly – against the unproven and untrustworthy Starmer-led Labour, creating a pathway to victory.
But that is just wishful thinking. The last time Conservatives had a polling lead was in November 2021. It’s already been a week since the announcement, and the polls have not budged. While polling gaps will likely narrow before July 4 (especially given the high proportion of undecided voters that remain, some of whom are disenchanted Tories who’ll return to the fold), Sunak would need a political miracle to pull off a comeback. After 14 years of Tory rule marred by political scandals, economic stagnation, surging immigration, and the Brexit debacle, Labour is almost certain to capitalize on the British public’s desire for change, win a comfortable majority (albeit short of the landslide secured by Tony Blair in 1997), and make Starmer the UK’s next prime minister.
To be sure, Labour's path to reviving Britain’s fading global clout won’t be smooth. For starters, the new government will inherit a sluggish economy with large structural imbalances and limited policy space. And yet, it should be decently well-positioned to deliver policies and reforms that reduce the current uncertainty about fiscal stability, rebuild relations with the European Union, and ultimately lead to a sustained rise in trade, investment, productivity, and growth.
The future remains unwritten, but a new chapter in UK history is upon us.