It’s extremely difficult to imagine that today’s meeting between Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron produced anything substantive beyond a photo opportunity at the Arc de Triomphe to mark the 106th anniversary of the 1918 armistice.
This year is also the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale and it suits both Starmer and Macron to big up the idea of Franco-British friendship, not that there has been much substance to it of late.
Various bromides will certainly appear in the read-outs of the meeting but in substance nothing will have been achieved
Downing Street briefed before today’s meeting that the agenda would cover the victory of Trump, and his threatened tariffs, and the war in Ukraine, and the president-elect’s threatened refusal to keep writing cheques for it. The leaders were also to discuss pressuring lame-duck president Biden to permit the use by Ukraine of Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Russia. In the end, the pair pledged to put Ukraine in the ‘strongest possible position’ before the winter.
Various bromides appeared in the read-outs of the meeting but in substance nothing has been achieved, other than distraction from Macron’s collapsing political authority in France and Starmer’s collapsing popularity in Britain.
The migrant crisis is said to have been mentioned in the talks, but this will hardly stop the French failing to stop the daily embarkation of hundreds of migrants, despite the UK paying and pledging well over £400 million since 2018 to France for efforts aimed at stopping illegal boat crossings.
Since July, the number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats has significantly increased.
Put aside excited descriptions of the Macron-Starmer talks as an emergency summit as it was plainly nothing of the sort. Starmer arrived at the Elysée at 9.30 a.m. and was laying a wreath at the eternal flame one hour and ten minutes later. So on the most optimistic of schedules, it is unlikely that they talked substantively for more than a few minutes.
Following the ceremony Starmer was off to the British Embassy for a reception before heading to Baku. He will be among very few world leaders at the annual COP climate jamboree, an event of trivial importance but a useful excuse for Starmer to pose as a statesman, even as his net approval rating has tumbled to -38, a drop of 49 points since July. Macron meanwhile has the support of only 21 per cent of voters, according to a new poll this week.
This was Starmer’s second visit to Paris since the general election and fourth meeting with Macron but it’s impossible to see these encounters as more than theatrical.
Starmer should be cosying up to Trump not Macron but given that virtually his entire cabinet thinks Trump is a fascist his influence in Washington is negligible.
There’s more substance to Emily in Paris than Starmer’s pretend bromance with the president of France.
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