PRESIDENT Macron was the first foreign leader Andy Burnham met in Downing Street since he became prime minister.
Burnham is at the beginning of his stint, Macron at the end of his. A new French president will be elected next May.
During his years in office Macron has, largely successfully, worked to position France as the leading power in Europe, not just in the EU.
That is particularly the case with European defence. Macron has increased France’s expenditure on defence by 43% in the last decade.
However, if you were to believe the English media, Britain has played the leading role in European defence, especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
One of the worst culprits in this misleading version was Keir Starmer, perpetually running about maintaining the British government’s delusions of grandeur.
He made 49 international trips to 33 countries during his premiership, earning him the nickname ‘Never here Keir’.
He invented the notion of the invisible ‘coalition of the willing’ and masqueraded as its leader, brushing aside France’s pivotal role.
Playing that imaginary role to maintain Britain’s world power status left Burnham with a serious financial headache.
Starmer committed Britain to raising defence expenditure to 3% of GDP by 2030.
The fact is that Burnham can’t afford to do that without cutting expenditure in most other government departments, which is what Starmer did this year.
Andy Burnham succeeded Keir Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister (Yui Mok/PA)
Britain relies on debt to finance government expenditure because there hasn’t been any economic growth for years.
In July, the government borrowed £2.3 billion more than expected, up £0.7bn on last July.
The cost of borrowing has been rising thanks to Trump’s illegal war on Iran and is now at its highest since 2008.
On Wednesday, Burnham’s former economic adviser Lord O’Neill warned that interest payments will “force Labour to get real about the triple lock on pensions and excess welfare spending”. Hmm.
So there you have it, the old choice: guns or butter. Which will Burnham pick since Britain can’t afford both?
It matters because among those worst affected by a pursuit of lost imperial grandeur will be people here, where a higher percentage rely on welfare than anywhere else in these islands.
Burnham on Tuesday correctly identified Brexit as one of the reasons for Britain’s dire economic and financial situation.
It’s also one of the reasons he can’t compete with France in European defence.
Britain is alone. France has access to the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE), providing €150bn of finance to EU states for defence.
France has the largest military forces in Europe, but there’s another aspect.
De Gaulle insisted that France would not accept American tutelage, whereas Britain chose to be America’s poodle, acting as America’s European aircraft carrier and leading to stupidly expensive post-imperial excursions like in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As a result of staying independent, France manufactures its own weaponry. It is the world’s second largest arms exporter after the US.
Emmanuel Macron and General Chief of Staff of the French armed Forces Fabien Mandon stand in the command car as they review troops during the Bastille Day military parade (Thomas Padilla/AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)
Britain buys US F-35s costing hundreds of millions. France makes and sells the Rafale fighter, 640 of which are on order worldwide.
France’s Naval Group builds and sells submarines and frigates. France’s Caesar artillery system is in demand throughout the EU.
France’s technological and industrial defence base is among the most developed and autonomous in the world.
One of the main advantages of French industry is its strategic independence, which allows Paris to export advanced systems without the restrictions often associated with American technologies.
France is also the only autonomous nuclear power in Europe with its ‘force de frappe’, whereas Britain’s wildly expensive, American-made nuclear deterrent is maintained and serviced in the US and can only be used with US say-so.
Britain can’t compete with any of this financially or strategically. It remains tied to America and excluded from the EU’s SAFE.
So, for Burnham it’s not only a choice between guns and butter, but whether he will throw caution to the wind and apply to rejoin the single market in return for access to EU funding and economic growth.
Two things for sure: he’ll not be able to abandon the triple lock on pensions, nor will he attempt a replay of Starmer’s failed welfare reform which Labour MPs blocked.
There is an alternative approach. Stand up to England’s right-wing media and the MoD’s lobbying, tell people the Russians aren’t going to sail up the Thames, cut his coat according to his cloth, and accept that Britain is a mid-sized European power.
If he’s going to borrow to finance his government’s defence expenditure, which seems likely, then he won’t be able to deliver any of his 10-year programme for renewal he talks about.
Poverty in the north will continue to grow, while this place remains shackled to the decomposing corpse of post-imperial Britain.
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