Adam Boulton: A PM in waiting? Why Sunak is getting uptight about Starmer
The Greek prime minister’s party got the call that Rishi Sunak was cancelling his meeting with Kyriakos Mitsotakis when they were on the way to talks with Sir Keir Starmer in parliament.
It did not feel like a coincidence.
With the Conservatives trailing a disastrous average of 19 points behind Labour in the opinion polls, the thin-skinned British PM and his entourage are increasingly uptight about Starmer being treated as a prime minister in waiting – PMiW for short – especially by fellow VIPs.
It is fascinating to observe the shuffling in the corridors of power when an opponent starts to look like a credible challenger to the incumbent.
The PM cannot get away from them in a parliamentary democracy but how should they treat political rivals when they are on an upward arc? Ignore them? Snub them? Patronise them graciously?
None of these is a comfortable option. Not least because other foreign leaders and power brokers quite legitimately want to get to know someone who they anticipate could be taking over soon.
UK prime ministers behave no differently. Tony Blair made a point of meeting the conservative candidate Angela Merkel in the run-up to a German election, even though he was in Berlin on a final visit to the outgoing chancellor, and fellow social democrat, Gerhard Schroder.
Sunak told MPs that he cancelled the invitation to the recently re-elected centre-right prime minister of a friendly European power “when it was clear that the purpose of the meeting was not to discuss substantive issues but rather to grandstand” about the Parthenon Marbles, sold to the British Museum by Lord Elgin.
The official-looking meeting
Far from impressing his audience, Sunak handed the Leader of the Opposition a grandstand opportunity to whack him with a severe PMQs spanking and to advertise his own credentials as a PMiW. Few would have noticed Starmer’s talks without the row.
Starmer wasted no time retorting that he had met “a fellow NATO member, an economic ally and one of our most important partners in tackling illegal immigration” and that “I discussed the economy, security and immigration with the Greek prime minister. I also told him we would not change the law regarding the marbles – it is not that difficult”.
By agreement, Starmer’s meeting with Mitsotakis was an official-looking affair – complete with pool camera pictures. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, and other officials joined them around a conference table.
Trying to look like a prime minister has meant Starmer frequently falls in line with government plans to avoid controversy. With the scent of power in the air, and the Corbynistas largely sidelined, Labour MPs are going along with this in public. By contrast the Conservatives seldom miss an opportunity to disagree among themselves.
A previous Labour PMiW, sitting on a similar poll lead, might find the situation familiar. Tony Blair notes in his memoirs: “[John] Major decided on a long campaign… the hope was I would trip up, I would suddenly lose my head, or by some trick of fate or fortune the mood of the public would change… instead and rather more predictably the Tories fell apart.
“Every time Major tried to get them on the front foot, someone in his ranks resigned, said something stupid or got caught in a scandal.”
Leaders in office are well aware they are conferring status when they meet PMiWs.
In the run-up to the 1987 General Election, Neil Kinnock secured an audience with President Reagan, coinciding with Margaret Thatcher’s high-profile trip to Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow.
Point one on the confidential State Department memo to the president spelt it out: “WHAT DOES KINNOCK WANT? * To meet with the President as Leader of the British Opposition and potential prime minister to demonstrate that he is a serious figure in international affairs.”
Not surprisingly, given Reagan’s fondness for Thatcher, that encounter did not go well – Labour felt slighted by White House briefings afterwards and retaliated by claiming Reagan was not on the ball.
Presidents are also heads of state, which means they can rise above party politics when it suits them.
US presidents usually hold at least one meeting with British opposition leaders.
Party allegiances, between Conservatives and Republicans on the right or Labour and Democrats on the left, do not matter much.
Shortly after taking office in 2009, Barack Obama insisted on a half-hour meeting with David Cameron, then leader of the opposition, at the US ambassador’s residence, Winfield House.
Both sides fielded top teams of officials, including Tim Geithner, US treasury secretary and Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state.
The British monarch, Queen or King, may also facilitate contacts because opposition leaders are invited to state occasions.
Ever the iconoclast, on his state visit in 2019 Trump claimed he had turned down a request from then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: “He wanted to meet today. I said no. He is somewhat of a negative force.”
Rachel Reeves and David Lammy have been on official trips to Washington DC, but Starmer has not yet had a formal meeting with Joe Biden even though this president has been to the UK five times, though never on a state visit.
Perhaps this is just as well given the polarisation of US politics with an election year approaching in both countries. For now, Sunak or Starmer are transparently eager not to be seen anywhere near Donald Trump.
Opposition ‘left out’
Number 10 and the Foreign Office are certainly not making it easy for Labour.
Reportedly, the prime minister has not yet given the green light to the civil service to begin the briefings for the opposition, which are normal courtesy in the run-up to an election.
There was no invitation to a Labour minister to join in the recent international talks on AI security at Bletchley Park.
This week, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch posted on X from the government’s investor conference: “It was sad to hear from some investors yesterday that they’d move their HQs out of UK if Labour win.
“They tell me Labour relentlessly talk down the economy. Labour are like one of those candidates on The Apprentice who get fired early on. All talk no substance.”
She did not respond to challenges to name any such investors.
In the business community, a different rumour has been circulating; that attendees were quietly warned their invitations to the Hampton Court junket would be withdrawn if they committed prominently to one of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ over-subscribed events.
Labour says the chancellor pressured “a load of businesses” not to sign up to their “British Infrastructure Council”.
This autumn, French President Emmanuel Macron invited Starmer and colleagues to the Elysee for talks.
Rishi Sunak is Britain’s only Brexiteer prime minister by life-long conviction.
He is super sensitive about relations with Europe and turned down an EU invitation to hold regular EU-UK ministerial summits.
Barbs at PMQs
During PMQs he chided Starmer, with no justification beyond the Greek meeting, that “no one will be surprised that he is backing an EU country over Britain”.
Starmer stuttered back that the PM was digging himself into a deeper hole: “Let me get this straight: the prime minister is now saying that meeting the prime minister of Greece is somehow supporting the EU, instead of discussing serious issues”.
If the prime minister was trying to energise a group of voters, the pickings may be slim. Well over 60% now tell pollsters that Brexit has not gone well and would like better relations with the EU.
Is it important for a PMiW to mix with current leaders on equal terms? It is surely good preparation if they end up getting the job. For some voters, it will be reassuring that a new leader might already count for something in international negotiations.
Sunak and Starmer both attended the COP28 climate summit in the UAE this weekend, where the King made a speech.
The PM dashed in for less than 24 hours. Starmer stayed three days until Sunday – to fulfil requests for meetings from a number of heads of state and government, according to his staff.
Neither the Elgin Marbles nor, frankly, Greece, are at the top of the diplomatic agenda. The UK government and opposition agree they are not going to change the law so the sculptures can be handed over.
The difference is that Sunak has made a diplomatic incident of it and, unlike Starmer, he has also obstructed the attempts to broker a compromise by a former Conservative colleague George Osborne, who is now chairman of the British Museum.
Perhaps the most painful swipe at PMQs for the prime minister came when Starmer risked a question, with the merest hint of a sizeist jibe at Sunak’s diminutive stature: “Why such small politics, prime minister?”
Or was it more humiliating when the Speaker rose to quell rowdies drowning out the PM’s peroration that “the British people aren’t listening” – to Starmer, he meant?
Whether they are listening now or not, come the general election the wait will be over for Sunak and Starmer. It will be up to the British people to choose who they think looks like the next PM.