Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK and France is to work with Ukraine “on a plan to stop the fighting” with Russia – and will then “discuss that plan with the United States”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due at a summit of European leaders, two days after a fiery exchange with US President Donald Trump in the White House.
Sir Keir told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that his “driving purpose” right now was to act as a “bridge” between the two men.
Asked about how he felt watching the spat in the White House, Sir Keir sought to play down the incident, saying “nobody wants to see that” and admitted he felt “uncomfortable”.
The PM’s response was to pick up the phone to his counterparts Trump and Zelensky that same night, in an effort to “get us back to the central focus”, he said.
“There are a number of different routes people can go down. One is to ramp up the rhetoric as to how outraged we all are or not.”
He said the other option was to “roll up my sleeves” and quickly phone both men – and then also to speak to French President Emmanuel Macron about the role that the leading nations of Europe would play.
“Because my reaction was we have to bridge this, we have to find a way that we can all work together because in the end we’ve had three years of bloody conflict now, we need to get to that lasting peace”.
He criticising those who were not focused on constructive action, including SNP calls to cancel the invitation to Trump for a second state visit.
Sir Keir said: “I’m not going to be diverted by the SNP or others trying to ramp up the rhetoric without really appreciating what is the single most important thing at stake here – we’re talking about peace in Europe.”
In the interview, Sir Keir was careful to avoid laying any blame for the row and insisted he was “clear in my mind” that Trump “wants a lasting peace”, answering “yes” when asked directly if he believed Trump could be trusted.
Zelensky could also be trusted, he added, but not Russian President Vladimir Putin – which is the reason the US needs to provide a security guarantee for any peace deal.
The prime minister acknowledged that a European security guarantee would have to be led by a “coalition of the willing”.
Sir Keir said that “Europeans have stood up in the last three years” but that “generally Europe needs to do more in its own defence and security and that’s why I’ve said we need to increase spending, we’ve got to increase capability and we’ve got to co-ordinate more because in the Ukraine conflict we’ve seen that the co-ordination isn’t there”.
Earlier this week, the PM announced he would cut the foreign aid budget to fund an increase in defence funding to 2.5% of national income by 2027, which led to the resignation of his International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds.
The move came after Trump had called on the US’s Nato allies to increase defence spending to 5% of their respective national incomes.
France spends 2.1% on defence and has pledged to double this by 2030.
Sir Keir urged all European nations to review their defence budgets, saying: “Generally Europe needs to do more in its own defence and security and that’s why I’ve said we need to increase spending, we’ve got to increase capability .
Asked to explain what a European “coalition of the willing” he said: “We need to be clear what a European security guarantee [in Ukraine} would look like.
“We’ve got to find those countries in Europe that are prepared to be a bit more forward-leaning.”
He said the UK and France were leading the thinking on it but added: “The more the better in this.”
This article was originally published at www.bbc.com
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