Starmer has grasped what his predecessors would not

The PM understands that Britain needs to stand with its real allies rather than an indifferent US, writes Sam Kiley in Kyiv

- Sam Kiley

Keir Starmer is announcing a pivot away from the US and towards Europe, in the most radical shift in British foreign policy for decades – resetting the UK’s place in a world that will diminish America’s power.

There will be consternation in some quarters of the nation’s armed forces, particularly the Special Forces, but ending the junior partner status of Britain under the US puts an end to the fantasy of the “special relationship”.

The PM grasped a barbed-wire nettle that many of his predecessors could not even see, when he stood up at the Munich Security Conference to say: “There is no British security without Europe, and no European security without Britain. That is the lesson of history - and it is today’s reality, too.”

He has insisted that the US remains an indispensable ally. But he is now recognising that it is no longer the only ally, and that Washington is not even a reliable friend. It has been a long time coming. But it has not always been the case.

Until the end of the Cold War, Britain and the US had a more equal partnership. It was underpinned by the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing relationship between Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the US and the UK, but London showed fierce independence. The UK stayed out of the Vietnam war. The US gave little to no support during Britain’s recapture of the Falkland Islands from Argentina in 1982.