Starmer to set date to increase defence spending during Trump visit – report
Sir Keir Starmer is expected to confirm a timeline to raise defence spending and give Donald Trump an invitation for a state visit when he visits Washington next week, per a report.
The Prime Minister will have to walk a tricky line when he meets President Trump, balancing the UK’s support for Ukraine with the need to keep the US onside.
The US President launched negotiations with Russia on ending the conflict, excluding Kyiv from talks – and a rift emerged between him and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Washington has also put pressure on the UK and its allies to do more to shoulder the burden of European security, and hiking their own defence spending.
In an effort to ease tensions, Sir Keir is expected during the trip to finally set a date, likely 2030, for the UK to reach its goal of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP, the Telegraph reported. This is up from the current 2.3 per cent.
The Prime Minister will also deliver an invitation from the King for a state visit to the UK, according to the newspaper. The US president is known to admire the royal family.
Starmer’s trip to Washington will come after Ukraine marks three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
The Prime Minister will reportedly unveil a new package of support for Kyiv on Monday to mark the occasion, including new sanctions and a defence spending announcement.
His trip to see the US President will also come after a visit by Emmanuel Macron. Trump said Starmer and the French president “haven’t done anything” to end the war in Ukraine.
Macron has said he intends to tell his American counterpart not to “be weak” in the face of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Starmer is also facing pressure to take a firm line.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey accused Trump of plotting a “stitch-up” with Putin that “amounts to a betrayal of Ukraine”, and urged Starmer to speak “honestly and openly”.
But senior Cabinet minister Pat McFadden stressed the importance of maintaining a “good and constructive relationship” with the White House.
“I think the UK is potentially in a good position with this administration, if we handle it correctly,” he said at the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow on Friday.
“[That] doesn’t mean following every twist and turn of every comment, but is focusing on what will actually happen as well as what was said.”
The growing rift between Trump and Zelensky presents a challenge for the Prime Minister, after the US leader described Zelensky as a “dictator”.
The Ukrainian president then claimed Trump was living in a Russian “disinformation space”, which led White House officials to accuse Zelensky of “insulting” his counterpart.
The Americans also cancelled a planned joint press conference in Kyiv, in a sign of a deepening feud between the two countries.
Businessman Elon Musk, who is acting as an adviser on federal spending to Trump, meanwhile suggested Zelensky is running a “fraud machine feeding off the dead bodies of soldiers”, suggesting limited appetite for continued American support for Ukraine.
However, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, retired general Keith Kellogg, praised Zelensky on Friday as an “embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war” following what he described as “extensive and positive discussions” between the two men.
Poland’s president Andrzej Duda is set to meet Trump on Saturday, Polish news agency PAP reported, after he said he had a “candid” conversation with Zelensky on Friday.
The US has proposed a draft UN resolution that stops far short of a competing European-backed statement demanding an immediate withdrawal of all of Moscow’s forces from Ukraine.
The very short US draft resolution offers mourning for “the tragic loss of life throughout the Russia-Ukraine conflict” and “implores a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia”.
The draft resolution from the EU and Ukraine singles out the assembly’s demand that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces” from Ukraine and its demand to immediate halt all hostilities.
Meanwhile, some 62 per cent of Britons believe Ukraine should be allowed into Nato, according to new polling.
The YouGov research also suggested 68 per cent think the UK should maintain its commitment to defend allies in the military bloc, but when asked specifically about defending the US this figure fell to 42 per cent.
If Britain were attacked, 44 per cent believe America would come to the country’s aid but 35 per cent are doubtful, according to the poll of 2,231 UK adults carried out this week.
Press Association – Helen Corbett, Christopher McKeon and David Lynch