The six-week soft launch of Andy Burnham’s premiership is nearing an end as Westminster readies for return of parliament from recess next week.
Meanwhile, the UK prime minister’s in-tray mounts with foreign policy issues such as backing Ukraine in the face of threats from Russia, as well as redefining relations with Britain’s two biggest security and defence partners, the US and European Union.
With his initial focus on domestic UK tweaks such as cutting rates for pubs, and his eye-catching social media content, Burnham has made a fair start on the home front.
His appearance in Kyiv on Monday for a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” illustrates how the pressing, epoch-defining geopolitical challenges above are likely to burn up more of his time, regardless of how much he’d prefer to focus on his backyard.
Each British prime minister that came after David Cameron in 2016 took office hoping to focus more on domestic politics. The wider world intervened to swamp their agendas.
Some of Burnham’s foreign policy appointments give hints of his thinking on foreign matters, of which little is known in Westminster or anywhere else.
New foreign secretary Ed Miliband already had an international profile and has wasted little time in distancing Britain further from the government of Israel, as well as forging a noticeably close bond with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio.
That relationship may serve as a decent conduit for the business end of US-UK relations, as Burnham has given no clue that he covets a pally relationship with US president Donald Trump. Then again, the US president often upends his own administration’s foreign policies on a whim. Burnham will have to deal with Trump and will surely break bread with him soon anyway.
Gordon Brown met George W Bush within a month of entering Downing Street, as did Boris Johnson with Trump. The G20 leaders’ summit in Miami in December, six months from Burnham taking over as UK prime minister, is the first time he and the US president are scheduled to be in the same room. Surely a first meeting will be arranged sooner.
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Jonathan Powell has stayed on as the UK’s national security adviser, giving an element of continuity from the regime of Keir Starmer. The more recent appointment of Evie Aspinall as Burnham’s foreign policy adviser in Number 10 gives a further clue about the new prime minister’s thinking.
Aspinall, who until last month was director of think tank British Foreign Policy Group, is a noted expert on security and defence issues. She has written repeatedly of the need for Britain to boost defence spending and, specifically, on how it is crucial to garner support for it from the UK public.
On his way to Kyiv, Burnham told António Costa, the president of the European Council, that Britain must be “bolder” in restoring relations with the EU bloc.
It is believed Burnham is preparing the ground to concede cheaper university fees for EU students studying in Britain as part of a youth scheme, in return for a better deal for the UK on trade. The issue was discussed last week in the meeting between Burnham’s new minister for EU relations, Hamish Falconer, and Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s EU minister who met Falconer as a representative of the EU, given Ireland holds the presidency.
A deal may be hatched before the next big EU-UK summit, which had been scheduled for July 22nd but was postponed to give Burnham time to get his feet under the table. No date has been set yet, but there are rumours in London that early November – possibly the 6th – could be the time to do it.
Only then will we know just how “bold” Burnham is prepared to be in improving relations with the EU, one of his top foreign policy priorities.