How will a Labour government fare in a Europe turning increasingly towards the Right? - Jayne Dowle

There are cultural reasons too; Starmer’s wife Victoria is Jewish, so Friday night is a family night.

I get the feeling that the Starmers are going to face some massive adjustments to their cosy weekly schedule. That kitchen family planner – surely they have one - will become a maze of scribbles, arrows and crossings-out, as the dad of the house faces far bigger challenges than cheering on competitive cheerleading.

Whilst there is plenty on the agenda on the home front – I’m talking about our battered and exhausted country as a whole rather than the Starmers’ new Downing Street digs – it’s matters abroad that might take up far more time than the first-time PM ever anticipated.

The big question is, how will a Labour government fare in a Europe turning increasingly towards the Right? Can Sir Keir Starmer, barrister by profession, and known for his calm and reasoned approach to problem-solving, provide any match for the racially and religiously-motivated hatred and division that threatens to upend civilised countries such as France?

And although the US Presidential is still months away, in November, what strategy does Labour have in the event of a resurgent Donald Trump winning for the Republicans? At that disastrous candidates’ debate, in which presidential incumbent Joe Biden looked anything but a safe pair of hands, Trump effectively said that should he take office in January 2025, he would end the war in Ukraine.

Many international observers, including former Conservative leader and David Cameron’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, interpret this as meaning that a belligerent Trump would bully the Ukrainians into accepting Russian annexation of a large part of their country.

Starmer will need to wise up pretty fast; come Christmas, he could be facing his own foreign policy war, on two fronts, west and east.

Across the Atlantic, the US could well end up in the hands of an unpredictable President, whether Republican or Democrat.

And across the Channel, if France doesn’t find itself with a hard-right government under Marine Le Pen, then he’ll be dealing with one dependent on the hard left, or a hung government with a pro-European unity middle-grounder Emmanuel Macron clinging onto the presidency with his well-manicured fingernails.

Against the wider backdrop of the biggest right-wing surge across Continental Europe since the Second World War, six EU countries, Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and the Czech Republic, now have hard-right parties already in government, the UK is looking increasingly isolated.

Others are bubbling up. In the Netherlands, for example, anti-Islamic Geert Wilders is on the verge of power, having sealed a historic deal to form the most right-wing government in recent Dutch history.

Where does a British Labour government sit then? Potentially alone in the silver sea, this sceptred isle will be able to look only to Spain as the next European country with what can be broadly defined as a left-wing government. Spanish politics are so complex and partisan that nothing can be taken for granted there, either.

Starmer is going to need a strong wingman (or woman) as Foreign Secretary to even begin to get to grips with all of this.

And it might be handy to have a civilised streetfighter at Defence; John Healey, MP for Wentworth and Dearne here in South Yorkshire has held the Shadow role for four years, and would probably be pleased to fit such a job spec.

However, when it comes to the global stage, it will be Starmer who will be called out to stand front and centre with other leaders. We all know what happens when this particular responsibility falls flat on its face; Rishi Sunak’s dip-out of the D-Day commemorations in France are still held up as a major reason behind his horrifying personal poll ratings with the public.

Only the most arrogant of individuals – Boris Johnson perhaps? – would declare on this jittery morning that he was fully ready for the job of literally taking on the world. But the new Prime Minister must face up to his responsibilities at home and abroad, and fast.