The Prime Minister’s critics say he is too focused on foreign policy. They’re wrong. His real mistake is failing to say plainly that Britain’s cost-of-living crisis is in large part being driven from abroad. Russia is deliberately using war, energy disruption and instability to make Europe poorer and more divided, in a world that has already become less predictable.
Starmer is right to link foreign policy and the cost of living
At a meeting of Labour MPs last night, Keir Starmer tried to make this case. Defending the two and a half months he has already spent abroad during his premiership, Starmer argued that his international interventions are directly linked to the pressures facing British households. “The cost-of-living crisis will not be solved by isolationism,” he told MPs. “You have to be in the room to tackle the issues working people care about.” Peace in Ukraine, energy stability, and trade deals for companies like Jaguar Land Rover, he said, cannot be delivered through “gesture politics”.
READ MORE: ‘Labour must act now to protect the UK and deter Russian aggression’
And so Keir Starmer clearly understands the connection between geopolitical instability and Britain’s cost-of-living crisis, the issue is he hasn’t been willing to make this explicit to the public.
Global insecurity is driving the cost-of-living crisis
The government continues to frame the cost-of-living crisis as a problem that can be solved largely through domestic policy choices. Announcements focus on price caps, fare freezes and measures like free school meals and breakfast clubs to ease pressure on family budgets. But these treat the symptoms, not causes. In a world increasingly shaped by war and instability, affordability and security are now inseparable.
Too often, the government talks about these issues as if they were unconnected. Ukraine is one conversation, energy security another, cyber threats, defence spending and growth each treated on their own. What Starmer is trying to say, but hasn’t yet landed, is that these are not parallel challenges, they are one and the same.
Energy prices show this most clearly. The volatility feeding through into bills is the result of geopolitical conflict and the deliberate weaponisation of supply. Since invading Ukraine, Russia has been explicit that economic disruption in Europe is not an unfortunate byproduct of war but one of its strategic aims. That’s because higher bills, political anger and social division weaken European governments and erode public support for Ukraine.
Russia’s actions sit within a broader shift in the global order. We live in a much more transactional geopolitical climate, with a China willing to use economic pressure, and an America whose future commitment to European security can no longer be taken for granted. The assumptions that once underpinned cheap energy, stable trade and predictable alliances no longer hold.
A conversation Britain needs to have
Other European governments have begun to speak more openly to their citizens about this reality. Germany, Sweden and Denmark are publicly debating conscription, food stockpiles and supply-chain resilience.
Britain hasn’t yet started this conversation. Defence spending is still framed as a competing priority. Energy security is argued over as a purely environmental issue.
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None of this will surprise the Prime Minister or his advisers. In private, officials acknowledge that global instability and domestic living standards are intrinsically linked. What’s missing is a clear, public explanation of what that linkage means and what trade-offs it entails.
The Prime Minister isn’t alone in avoiding that conversation. No British political leader has been willing to confront the public with the scale of the challenge now facing Britain, and Europe as a whole.
Perhaps politicians of all parties have convinced themselves that voters can’t handle hard truths; that admitting bills may stay high or taxes may rise is electoral suicide. But the reality may be different. People understand the world has changed. They see the war in Ukraine, feel the instability, and recognise that the assumptions of the past no longer hold. What they lack is leadership willing to explain what that means and to chart a course through it.
Politics has become dominated by the promise of simple fixes when the reality is far more unsettling. The truth is that bills may not fall quickly, taxes may have to rise, public spending priorities may have to change, and even assumptions about how we live our lives may no longer hold. This is the world Britain is moving into. Pretending otherwise might feel safer but it leaves the country unprepared and is no longer credible.
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