Andy Burnham is being urged to prioritise Europe over the US amid criticism that his predecessor was too close to Donald Trump.
Britain’s likely next prime minister is being told to spend his early political capital on Brussels, not Washington – a direct rejection of the strategy Sir Keir Starmer pursued with the US President.
Critics of Starmer’s approach point to Trump’s Oval Office confrontation with Volodymyr Zelensky, in February last year, as the moment Britain should have pivoted towards Europe.
Shorts
A Foreign Office insider said Downing Street failed to recognise the difference between a second Trump presidency and his first, arguing that it continued to pursue the “Shinzo Abe strategy” of acting as a critical but supportive ally. Abe, Japan’s former prime minister, had followed such as policy in relations with the USA.
