Britain’s Brexit Stalemate Amid Shifting Global Power

While the Labour party descended into internal conflict last week, Donald Trump was visiting China, underscoring a stark contrast in priorities as global power dynamics shift rapidly.

By the time Wes Streeting submitted his resignation letter to Keir Starmer, the U.S. president had completed a two-hour bilateral meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and moved on to sightseeing.

The events unfolded in parallel, but the superpower summit failed to rival domestic manoeuvres against the prime minister in the competition for media and Westminster attention, a normal reflection of how domestic crises routinely bump foreign events off the news agenda.

There were no surprises in Beijing, with Trump on his best behaviour. The two leaders stuck to a script of mutual flattery and conflict aversion in public, though their private discussions on trade, Taiwan, AI, and Iran may prove significant, their contents remain secret.

Sino-U.S. relations are unlikely to feature on the campaign trail in Makerfield over the coming weeks, as party strategists note such topics are not doorstep issues. With limited voter bandwidth for political messages, candidates are advised to focus on prominent public concerns, which typically exclude foreign affairs.

Gaza has been a driver of support for Greens and independent candidates in recent ballots, but as an engine of outrage rather than a coherent account of what the UK government could realistically achieve in the Middle East, it remains an exception.

Starmer performs better internationally than domestically. Even his rivals praise his decision not to let Britain get embroiled in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, with Streeting’s resignation letter citing it as an example of courage and statesmanship, contrasting with the gung-ho impulses that Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch displayed early in the conflict.

The prime minister gets no credit for this sound foreign policy call, not just because voters have other priorities. Keeping British forces out of battle does not prevent Britain from feeling the economic consequences of war, such as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz driving up energy prices and inflation, squeezing household budgets, and boosting market expectations that the Bank of England will raise interest rates.

Turbulent Gulf waters ripple globally and slosh over doorsteps in Makerfield. The same applies to the Trump-Xi meeting, though its impact is more subtle, symbolising China’s status as a superpower at or near parity with the U.S. No single country rivals the top two in economic and technological terms, with Europe only a contender if it marshals collective continental wealth through strategically focused investment.

Britain can choose to partner in that European project or accept a role as adjunct. National power could be boosted through an alliance of neighbours with broadly aligned global interests, or it can be circumscribed by the Brexit cult of sovereignty that sees regulatory harmonisation with Europe as colonisation while welcoming subordination to U.S. tech giants and industrial lobbies.

British politics is not grappling with this predicament, which requires an honest audit of the exorbitant costs and negligible benefits of life outside the EU. This is less taboo than two years ago when Starmer campaigned on making Brexit work, now calling it a disaster, but the terrain remains tricky for Labour.

To win a seat where a majority voted leave in 2016, Andy Burnham feels he must treat the referendum result as a totem of immutable democratic will. In his first major speech since announcing his byelection candidacy, the mayor of Greater Manchester called Brexit damaging but said revisiting those arguments was the last thing to do, promising a relentless domestic focus to fix the country.

Such parochialism is understandable but disheartening, especially in an otherwise thoughtful speech on Britain’s economic dysfunction. Burnham would rather not address the matter, but Streeting had put it on the table days earlier by expressing his preference for rejoining the EU.

This is not just a Labour pathology. Farage, Brexit’s ideological godfather, does not boast of it as an accomplishment. His model for future Britain is as a satrapy in a MAGA-led U.S. empire, but given Trump’s unpopularity here, he keeps that quiet. Badenoch’s culture-warrior tendency steers her similarly, endorsing JD Vance’s description of continental liberals as a greater threat than Putin.

The Tories have no sensible strategic concept for Britain in the 21st century. When Starmer visited Beijing, Badenoch derided it as kowtowing, saying she would not have gone. Such hawkishness was meant to prove loyalty to Washington, yet she presumably disapproves of Trump praising Xi as an honour to befriend.

Opposition leaders do not have to think about foreign matters if they do not come up on the doorstep, a trap Labour fell into. The electoral advantage of shutting down hard questions about Britain’s global place postponed the search for answers and confined it to the barren field of Brexit-believing policy options, leaving Labour splashing in the shallow end of debate, a comfort zone for demagogues blaming immigrants and benefit claimants.

Hard to make a compelling doorstep campaign out of complex geopolitics, especially for an incumbent government. But that is why the error of Brexit must be tackled head-on. The slogan ‘take back control’ spoke to anxiety and lack of agency in a disorienting world. Those feelings have only worsened as Britain’s capacity to influence global events diminished by leaving the EU. The road to control leads back to Europe, a core argument many people are open to hearing.