Starmer: UK does not need to choose between US and EU

The premier curate has vowed not to take betwixt allies of the UK successful a code connected overseas policy.

Attacking the Conservatives for having "turned their backmost connected the world", Sir Keir Starmer said his authorities would alternatively fortify ties with some the US and the EU.

Sir Keir besides stressed the existent "dangerous times", saying stableness was indispensable for growth, truthful the UK indispensable proceed to backmost Ukraine against Russia "as an erratic, progressively hopeless aggressor".

He added: "There is nary maturation without information – and nary information without alliances."

Speaking astatine the Lord Mayor's Banquet successful London's Guildhall, an yearly lawsuit held by the City of London Corporation and wherever the PM traditionally speaks connected planetary issues, Sir Keir acceptable retired however the UK would present "stand gangly connected the satellite stage".

"Against the backdrop of these unsafe times, the thought that we indispensable take betwixt our allies, that someway we’re with either America oregon Europe, is plain wrong," helium said.

"I cull it utterly. Attlee did not take betwixt allies. Churchill did not choose.

"The nationalist involvement demands that we enactment with both."

Sir Keir said helium told President-elect Donald Trump during their gathering successful New York successful September that the UK "will put much profoundly than ever successful this transatlantic enslaved with our American friends successful the years to come".

He besides repeated his committedness to "rebuild our ties with Europe too".

Sir Keir insisted it is "deeply successful our self-interest" to enactment Ukraine against Russian president Vladimir Putin due to the fact that "the aboriginal of state successful Europe is being decided today".

The UK is present "determined to combat harder connected the satellite signifier for our nationalist interests and acceptable to excavation deeper to support them", helium said, due to the fact that a triumph for Putin would harm "our ain security, stableness and prosperity".

"So we indispensable proceed to backmost Ukraine and bash what it takes to enactment their self-defence for arsenic agelong arsenic it takes," helium said.

Supporting allies was what erstwhile premier ministers Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill had done, helium said, adding that helium thought of the Attlee authorities of 1945 and its ambition to physique "a state acceptable for heroes".

"And they saw that maintaining our spot overseas gave america the instauration to win astatine home. That is arsenic existent contiguous arsenic it was then," helium said.

Now was the time, Sir Keir said, to "strengthen our information arsenic the bedrock connected which the system rests – and the eventual guarantor of everything we clasp dear".

However, Conservative Party co-chair Nigel Huddlestone said it was Sir Keir's authorities that had "set our state back" since Labour took powerfulness 5 months ago.

He said: "From driving concern assurance to near-record lows, moving radical punished with a jobs tax, maturation projections slashed, and a dash to surrender British interests overseas - it’s nary wonderment he’s been forced into a hopeless reset."