In Keir Starmer, India has a friend, a well-wisher
Britons have opted for stability, the watchword that frequently dominates general election campaigns in India. Voters in the United Kingdom had enough of musical chairs in 10, Downing Street, the official residence of their Prime Minister. Three heads of government in one year and nine months, one Prime Minister lasting merely 50 days!
The UK was beginning to resemble Italy, where chronic instability has been built into the political system. One Italian Prime Minister, Tommaso Tittoni, was in office only for 16 days. In the post-World War II era, Fernando Tambroni Armaroli had the shortest tenure of four months.
The Prime Minister-designate, Keir Starmer, will provide the UK with much-needed stability following his Labour Party’s super majority in the House of Commons, barring any unforeseen political trainwrecks. After the shocks and scandals in the time of Boris Johnson, who was Prime Minister twice removed from the outgoing Rishi Sunak, anything is possible in British politics. It has been a very long time since the UK showed the way for Europe — or for the rest of the world — on any issue or great idea.
For Europe, Starmer’s stable government in London will mean a change of continental proportions. Although the UK is no longer in the European Union, it is integral to Europe. Starmer will be a striking contrast to France’s wobbly President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s creaking coalition under Chancellor Olaf Scholz. This is a time when Europe desperately needs cohesion and leadership, especially with a bull-in-a-china-shop Donald Trump presidency looming large in the United States. Starmer’s four-year stewardship of the Labour Party has shown promise. That is why Britons have entrusted him with their prime ministership after 14 years of repeated defeats for Labour.
For a change, India anticipated Starmer’s assumption of the high office in 10, Downing Street and built timely bridges with the Labour Party. It has a reputation for being a rambunctious crowd of Khalistanis, Mirpuri Muslim British citizens from the other side of the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, and the Pakistani diaspora with vote banks in cities like Bradford, Manchester, and Luton.
In the last decade, this reputation grew stronger in proportion to the Narendra Modi government’s assertive foreign policy towards Pakistan, and a no-nonsense approach to proponents of Khalistan in the UK, Canada, and the US. For External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, resistance within the BJP and sections of the government to an outreach to Starmer and his top aides was not easy to overcome. These naysayers, some of whom wear nationalism on their sleeve, wanted India to get closer to ethnic Indian Sunak and be more demonstratively supportive of his Conservatives. As if India could help Sunak win re-election! It made no sense as realpolitik because it had been apparent from Day 1 of Sunak’s tenancy of 10, Downing Street that he was a loser.
There were go-betweens, some give-and-take, and finally, David Lammy, the man who is likely to be the Foreign Secretary in the Starmer Cabinet visited India in February along with Jonathan Reynolds, who will have an economic portfolio in the next government. The ground for Lammy’s visit was prepared by Jaishankar who met Starmer in London in November. Jaishankar also met former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, who subsequently became an ardent advocate with the current Labour leadership for steps to mend fences with India. Lammy was chosen — instead of a white man — for the India outreach partly because he is of Guyanese origin.
It had become quite known in London’s strategic community since the middle of last year that Starmer assured the go-betweens that he would rein in the anti-India radicals in the House of Commons once he came to power. It is possible for him to do so because Starmer does not owe his huge majority in the new Parliament to fringe groups. He will be the first Labour leader in a long time who belongs to all Britons without consideration for ethnicity or sectarian beliefs.
Does Sunak’s short-lived leadership of government and Trump’s experience ‘across the pond’, as the saying goes about the Atlantic Ocean, mean that politics is best left to politicians? Sunak was an investment banker and Trump built his business empire. Former diplomats have made good heads of state or government in Europe and retired Army Generals in the US. If Trump is re-elected US President, he will prove wrong the assumption that businessmen should stick to corporate board rooms, where Sunak may be headed in defeat soon.
(K P Nayar has extensively covered West Asia and reported from Washington as a foreign correspondent for 15 years.)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.