Starmer: Zelensky is a ‘hero’

Keir Starmer was careful in his Commons statement about Ukraine to distance himself from what happened in the Oval Office on Friday, while also insisting that Britain needs to maintain a strong relationship with the US. He told MPs that Friday’s public spat between Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump and JD Vance was ‘something nobody in this house wants to see’, but added: ‘I do want to be crystal clear, we must strengthen our relationship with America – for our security, for our technology, for our trade and investment’. He also repeatedly disagreed with any MP who suggested drawing back from the relationship with Trump. Later in the session, he said very directly to Nigel Farage that the Commons needed to be clear that Zelensky was a ‘hero’ and that there should be no ‘fawning to Putin’.

Starmer was keen to pitch himself as the figure leading the international effort to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine, but he was notably restrained in praising himself for that. There are other leaders who might have tried to frame the events of the weekend, with Britain convening leaders and setting up a ‘coalition of the willing’, as something to celebrate, a sign that Britain is still a big player. There was none of that kind of tone in his response. 

Starmer received praise from across the House for the way he had responded to the situation, with Labour MPs saying it made them and their constituents ‘proud’, and Tory MPs applauding the restraint he had shown and his focus on bringing leaders together. Former foreign secretary James Cleverly said the Prime Minister had not ‘put a foot wrong’ over the weekend, while former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith also backed the stance he had taken. The word ‘leadership’ was used repeatedly across the House. Kemi Badenoch’s response as Conservative leader was largely focused on backing Starmer and saying her party would support the government on this. She said she would leave questions about further details for later. 

The main criticisms came from MPs who regretted that the defence spending increase was being funded by cutting the international development budget. This included Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, who praised Starmer’s leadership but also warned that ‘it is hard to believe that there will be enough left in the budget to provide meaningful humanitarian support in these priority areas’. Starmer told Thornberry and other MPs who raised concerns that he wanted to return aid spending to its previous levels (something it is hard to imagine happening in the mid-future, let alone short term), and that he was exploring other ways of raising finance for international development spending. 

One Labour backbencher, Richard Burgon, expressed concern about the prospect of British troops being deployed on the ground, saying: ‘The consequences for millions of people in our country, across Europe, of such war and nuclear conflict really do not bear thinking about.’ Starmer was blunt and short in his response, saying the real risk was not fighting for democracy. Though Burgon was using a figure of speech, the consequences of deployment of course do bear thinking about: indeed, it’s the sort of thing MPs should be thinking about and weighing up against the consequences of doing nothing, which is so often the default response of parliamentarians who don’t want to confront the reality of a world with dictators stealing territory and children.

There wasn’t much politicking in this statement, though there was a brief moment where Labour backbencher Gregor Poynton said remarks made by SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn were ‘juvenile’ and showed his party could not be trusted on defence. Starmer did show some relish as he said that people reacted in ‘different ways’ to what had happened on Friday, and that while some people took to their keyboards, he had picked up the phone.