I\u2019m Mark Paul, London correspondent for The Irish Times, and I am filling in today for Denis Staunton while he is away.<\/p>\n
This is a crucial and perhaps even existential week for UK<\/a> prime minister Keir Starmer<\/a>, with difficult elections at home and renewed strife abroad. How can he survive it?<\/p>\n Everything, everywhere, all at once<\/p>\n Starmer could be forgiven for waking up each morning and wondering what fresh hell lies in store for him.<\/p>\n This morning, his main trouble is on the foreign front with the resumption of conflict in the Middle East. US president Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s attempt to break Iran\u2019s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has led to more missiles flying across the Gulf after a four-week break.<\/p>\n The war had already effectively destroyed one of Starmer\u2019s main foreign policy achievements in office, which was a hitherto good relationship with Trump that had resulted in Britain scoring an ersatz trade deal with the US. The president now dismisses Starmer with scorn for refusing to join his adventures in the Gulf.<\/p>\n Now, the war also threatens to wreck any lingering hopes to which Starmer may have clung that his ailing government\u2019s attempts to jump-start the UK economy might have paid off in time, before his country finally ran out of patience with him.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s war in Iran has dampened global trade, which will lessen the fruit of the other trade deals that Starmer has struck in India and elsewhere. It has damaged British businesses by driving up the cost of energy. And by stoking inflation, it will also make life even harder for the working-class voters that Starmer has been trying to win back.<\/p>\n The preponderance of global strife also means Starmer is now under pressure to spend money he doesn\u2019t have beefing up the UK\u2019s military to deal with new threats.<\/p>\n By the second half of the week, Starmer\u2019s focus will shift from global to domestic matters, and the small matter of Thursday\u2019s parliamentary elections in Wales and Scotland and local elections in England. Labour<\/a>\u2019s expected dire performance in all of them could even spark a leadership challenge against the UK prime minister.<\/p>\n As his international and domestic woes converge, there may be a chance that one group could balance out the other: a heave may be less likely to be launched against Starmer while he is having to deal with the effects of, and trying to stop, a war abroad.<\/p>\n But what if one of his rivals, such as health secretary Wes Streeting, decides to launch a challenge in the wake of what are expected to be disastrous election results, on the basis that he may never get a better chance? If Streeting moves, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner may move too.<\/p>\n How might Starmer respond if his rivals, or their backbench outriders, challenged his position? His dwindling band of allies insist to all and sundry he would fight back.<\/p>\n