John Palmer investigates whether a messy divorce is in the making between the United States and the European Union
Few were surprised when, on taking office, Keir Starmer’s government pledged to rebuild closer relations both with the European Union and its member state governments. As had been predicted, trade with the UK’s closest neighbours has been hit very hard in the years since the Brexit referendum. Young people, who have lost education and travel rights across the EU, have paid a particularly heavy price for Brexit.
At more or less the same time, the “Atlantic Alliance” – the post Second World War bloc which spawned NATO, was shaken to the core by the re-election of the unpredictable, populist right-wing nationalist, Donald Trump, as United States President. The two pillars on which much of UK’s global strategy depended were upended.
Unsurprisingly, given the widening economic gulf between the UK economy and its principal competitors, this led to a rethink in Whitehall about the UK’s future relations with the EU. London now seeks to forge closer economic ties with the European Union while still being opposed to actually rejoining the EU Customs Union or its Single Market.
The Starmer government even appears to exclude having a similar free trade relationship to that which non-members Switzerland and Norway have with the EU. So terrified is this government by the growing electoral menace of the far-right “Reform” party.
The Starmer government’s fear of the British (mainly English) Europhobic far right has made the task of negotiating significant new “trade and cooperation agreements” with the EU both legally and politically formidable. The UK still has difficulty even explaining clearly to its EU “partners” exactly what long-term relationship the Labour government is actually seeking.
Both London and the member states of the EU are, at the same time, struggling to deal with the unpredictable chaos that surrounds President Trump’s administration. Trump episodically expresses something close to utter distaste for everything associated with an increasingly integrated European Union.
Even more of concern to both the UK and the EU leaders is the fear that the Kremlin has become, in Trump’s view, more of a misunderstood but potentially valuable partner in managing the global order than a deadly political and security rival. Trump has shown a surprising enthusiasm not only for reaching ambitious US/Russian trade and investment “deals” but even forging a future global foreign and security partnership.
He speaks frequently of his personal regard for Vladimir Putin. Some suspect this “Putinophilia” may be rooted in his own personal history as a big investor in Russia. The Moscow establishment seems to hold Trump in unusual respect. Maybe it knows more about Trump’s past Russian involvement than we do.
By contrast, Trump’s suspicion of (and barely disguised hostility toward) America’s European allies has generated trans-Atlantic diplomatic turbulence. The US is increasingly reluctant to continue subsidising the military costs of the NATO alliance. Washington has even threatened that unless the Europeans massively increase their military spending, the US will withdraw funding of the “Atlantic Alliance” and might even leave NATO entirely.
Formally, NATO HQ continues to operate in Brussels – but it is no longer where the key decisions about Western security are really taken. “European Security and Defence” is, in effect, now becoming a new commitment of the European Union – or rather of an emerging majority group of key EU Member States.
France and Germany, with UK support, are rapidly laying the foundations for a future de facto EU defence and security pact. The ambivalent response of Washington to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made clear that future European defence and security will now primarily be a matter for negotiation and cooperation at the European Union rather than at the Atlantic level.
Steps are already underway to accelerate closer military and defence integration between Britain, France, Germany and other key EU states. Future defence security and defence decisions will increasingly be taken at EU level or, more likely, through decision-making by “vanguard” groups of EU member states. Although led by the French and German governments, London is now also at the core of the emerging EU security and defence union.
This process could become more controversial if the EU constitution itself has to be extended or amended or extended in future. Possible future EU treaty changes, necessary to integrate the new security and defence agenda with broader EU policy, are not excluded.
A common defence strategy is emerging which may commit the EU as a whole or, more likely, involve mutual defence and security pacts between willing EU member states. But it remains to be seen whether future EU defence integration will survive intact, given both the economic burdens involved and existing differences on policy. Many, but not all, EU member state governments take a fearful and deeply sceptical attitude to the authoritarian regime in Moscow.
In marked contrast to the East/West Cold War years, attitudes in some EU capitals – notably among hard right and populist governments – are openly sympathetic to Moscow. They welcome Moscow’s support in some cases over disputes between national governments and specific national minorities who tend to identify with neighbouring countries.
Right-wing, nationalist governments in Hungary and Slovakia take a markedly more friendly attitude to the Putin government in Moscow than that taken in Berlin, Paris and London. Nor can anyone ignore the fact that a much more accommodating stance towards Moscow is already a distinctive hallmark of the rapidly rising far right generally across Europe.
The socialist left needs to pay far more attention to these developments. The Labour government is being drawn into major new long-term commitments to arms spending – at a time when its commitment to a radical onslaught on poverty and inequality at home already seems to be wilting.
The socialist left in Britain should open a dialogue with the left across the EU about the future character of European defence and security. At present, across Europe, the left and the broader trade union and labour movement appear utterly marginalised at a very critical moment in an increasingly unstable global environment. This will continue at our peril.
The future of transatlantic relations depends much on whether Trumpite reaction will survive the next US Presidential election later this decade. Trump now seeks to reshape the interpretation of the American constitution in order to strengthen the legal and political forces of his far-right supporters. His authorisation of the National Guard militia to suppress civil rights demonstrators in California may be an ominous precursor for the future.
It is too soon to judge what, if anything, will remain of traditional post-World War Two Atlanticism. We on the socialist left need to better understand the interplay and the possible direction of these new global trends. In the meantime, the case for Britain’s European Union resumed membership remains more urgent than ever as the economic and security shadows deepen.
The “Left” across Europe is as fractured as it is in Britain. But a broad European coalition of socialists, social democrats, and Greens could and should ring the security alarm and help forge a strategy which rejects security submission to those in the east or in the west. Without this, careless, unthinking rhetoric about preparing for a possible future war in Europe might morph into reality.