Dear John,

In the week where the post-war consensus of an American guaranteed security and defence network in Europe came crashing down, Starmer made a flying visit to Paris, and Germany prepares to go to the polls, here is your Weekend Wire…

The end of Pax Americana?

Since the Second World War America has been intimately connected to the security apparatus and the defence provision on the European continent. The U.S. has acted as the defence guarantor for some time, a policy which has delivered a period labelled by some as ‘Pax Americana’. 

It appears that that era has come to a bitter conclusion following Donald Trump’s descent into peddling Kremlin propaganda coupled with JD Vance’s bizarre attack on the European political establishment and endorsement of the far-right AfD party just before the German federal elections.

The Trump administration has made it abundantly clear this week that peace in Europe is not merely less of a  priority, but an unwanted burden on American taxpayers. Cloaking himself in a narcissistic visage of peace maker supreme, Donald Trump has gone from welcoming Vladimir Putin back from the diplomatic wilderness, to coveting Ukraine’s natural resources, ruling out sending American troops to Ukraine and, perhaps most shockingly, launching a bizarre tirade on the Ukrainian President, blaming him for the war and calling him a dictator. Perhaps if Zelensky was a dictator Trump might respect him more…

The disgraceful comments made by Trump toward Zelensky signal the start of a new politics. The rules of the jungle are back, the biggest and the strongest nations are throwing around their geopolitical weight with very little respect for convention or international law.For Trump, Vance and Musk, diplomacy and the law are nuisances. As Marco Rubio and Sergey Lavrov sat opposite one another in Saudi Arabia, the absence of Ukraine and any European representation at the meeting was conspicuous. Europe, the continent that for so long was the setter of global diplomacy and norms risks being left behind by a world dominated by strongmen in America, Russia and China. The exclusion from the meeting, which felt much more like a property negotiation than any kind of peace discussion, must and seemingly has sharpened the minds of European leaders. 

Trump's upending the geopolitical table is likely to sharpen minds in Whitehall on who they want to hitch the UK wagon to, one would suspect that the actions of Trump’s cabal have reinforced a belief that Britain's future lies with Europe.  Unity with Europe on defence and economics is the only way that the Government can mitigate the influence of Trump and his geopolitical vandalism.

Former British ambassador to the United States and Best for Britain board member, Kim Darroch, has written a fascinating article regarding the challenges facing Peter Mandelson as he takes on the mantle of ambassadorship.

French connection

Fresh from the worrying revelations across the Atlantic, Emmanuel Macron called an emergency meeting of European leaders. In attendance; Keir Starmer, Olaf Scholz of Germany, Georgia Meloni of Italy, Donald Tusk of Poland, EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Mette Frederiksen of Denmark amongst others.

The talks were an attempt  to show unity in the face of uncertainty, but come the end of Monday’s summit little in the way of substance had been agreed. The biggest news from the meeting was the disagreement between the members over  sending soldiers into Ukraine as part of any eventual peace keeping force. The idea, first proposed by Macron, was adopted by Starmer on Sunday in an op-ed in The Telegraph. However, leaders such as Tusk and Scholz were less enamoured with the proposal.

Scholz, who is facing defeat at the German federal elections on Sunday, was clear that it was far too early to discuss the deployment of European troops into Ukraine whilst peace remained such a vague and untenable proposition. Instead, he argued that the focus must be on continuing to support Ukraine economically whilst all European countries increase defence spending. 

Europe is a continent which has been politically frozen out and is coming to terms with the end of the so-called ‘peace dividend’ they have long enjoyed. Frederiksen bemoaned what she saw as the naivety of Europe, arguing that never again must the continent reduce its defence spending so much and take its security as a given. Announcing a $5 billion increase in defence spending, the Danish PM announced such a scenario “Must never happen again”.

Washington beartrap

It is fair to say that it will be an interesting experience for Starmer as he travels over the pond to meet with President Trump. The timing speaks for itself, the importance of the meeting couldn’t be much higher. Starmer must navigate a diplomatic minefield, on the one hand being strong and firm in the face of Trump’s ludicrous claims whilst on the other not inviting the petulant punitive behaviour that Trump appears all too happy to dish out to those who defy him. 

In recent days, it has been mooted that Starmer sees himself as a conduit between the EU and the U.S., the meeting in Washington will no doubt put that theory to the test. The unpredictable nature of Trump, mixed with his current policy of ‘flooding the zone’ (a Steve Bannon term for filling the media and the popular imagination with so many policies and decisions that no one can keep up), mean that Starmer must be careful to not be caught off guard by a completely random (and likely deranged) Trumpian statement.

Despite the pitfalls, the meeting in Washington is an important opportunity for Starmer to restate the merits of a strong trans-Atlantic relationship, although let's be honest if facts and rational argument had any effect on Trump and co, I think we might have noticed by now…

YM-Yes!

The big news of the week for all of us Europhiles was the reports that broke late on Thursday that the Government was planning to offer a Youth Mobility Scheme to the EU. 

Recent reports suggest that as part of the Prime Minister's relationship reset with Brussels, the Government is ready to offer a reciprocal EU-UK Youth Mobility Scheme that would allow a set number of young Europeans to work and travel in the UK for up to three years with young British people able to travel and work in the EU in return.

A reciprocal EU-UK Youth Mobility Scheme was first proposed by the cross-party UK trade and Business Commission in their landmark report published in May 2023.  Since then, Best for Britain has campaigned for such a scheme with Best for Britain polling in 2023 and 2024 showing a strong majority of the British public back the policy.

Naomi Smith, CEO of Best for Britain which has campaigned for such a scheme since May 2023 said, 

“If these reports are accurate, this is a very welcome and common sense move from the Government to give opportunities back to young Brits while helping  businesses across the UK struggling with labour shortages.

"With our polling consistently showing that around 60% of voters back the idea, it really is a win-win for both the UK and EU.”

A Youth Mobility Scheme has long been seen as a key first step towards further negotiations with the EU, with figures such as Sandro Gozi, the leader of the EU delegation to the UK claiming the policy was central to any future reset. Downing Street continues to be cautious about a plan, fearing a deal on youth mobility might be seen as a return to freedom of movement, which it categorically is not. 

The apparent advancement in negotiations comes at an important time both geopolitically and will hopefully allow the PM to deliver an “ambitious” post-Brexit deal with Brussels when he welcomes President Von der Leyen to the first UK-EU summit in May.

Entscheidungszeit

Tomorrow, it is decision time for the German people as they head to the polls in one of the most important elections in the country’s post-war history. For the first time the far-right, insurgent AfD, defined by anti-immigrant and anti-Ukrainian sentiment, will become the second largest party in Germany’s parliament.

It seems likely that the election will deliver Freidrich Merz to the highest office in Germany, as his CDU party becomes Germany’s largest party. But as it is unlikely they  will secure a majority he will be forced to negotiate a coalition. 

There's a long-held understanding within German politics that far-right parties like the AfD are to be excluded from the political process in what is known as ‘a firewall’. While the CDU and AfD did recently collaborate on a migration bill, Merz, during a television debate over the weekend, categorically ruled out including the AfD in any coalition, but opened the door to possible collaboration with the SPD and Greens. 

During her long tenure as Chancellor, Angela Merkel favoured an alliance between her CDU party and the SPD in what was known as the ‘Grand Coalition’. As the German electoral system requires that smaller parties must gain over 5% of the vote to enter the Bundestag, larger parties gain a slightly larger share of seats compared to their vote share. Due to this, current projections of seat totals have a CDU-SDP coalition as commanding a slender majority of 322 seats. In the case that two parties cannot form a majority coalition, more parties may be invited to join the government. However, such 'traffic light' governments - such as the previous coalition of the SDP, Greens and FDP - can be precarious, and potentially unsuited to a time of such geopolitical instability.

The election on Sunday will be one of the most important in Germany since the Second World War. The advance of the AfD; the economic vulnerability of a country that would be deeply affected by potential U.S. tariffs; the escalation of the situation in Ukraine; and the interference by the American Vice-President all paint a troubling picture. 

The indications that America is moving toward both a more isolationist and protectionist foreign and economic policy respectively further highlight the importance of not just a strong and stable Germany, but a Europe and Britain united against economic vandalism and Russian aggression. The time for a deeper relationship with Germany and the EU as a whole has never been more prescient for the UK. No matter the result of the German election, the UK must deepen its alliance with Europe.

Cringe (Musk) Column 

I want to thank Niall for taking over in my stead last week. It is fair to say that a lot has happened since we last spoke, I wonder what diplomatic consensus will collapse during my next holiday!

It can be a challenging time right now, I certainly feel a remarkable sense of anxiety at the events unfolding before us, but we must keep engaged and keep practising the values that we hold dear. It is shaping up to be a long four years, and we must be kind to ourselves as we fight against the march of authoritarianism in Europe and America.

All the best and I look forward to catching up with you next week, no more nasty surprises please Donald!

Joshua Edwicker

Content Officer

Best for Britain