From town hall to G20 President: Andy Burnham must now stand up to Donald Trump – Bernhard Blumenau
Complex international affairs may not come naturally to a Prime Minister focused on domestic issues but Andy Burnham will soon have a key role to play, writes Dr Bernhard Blumenau
On his first, frantic half-day in office, Andy Burnham announced new policy on VAT, appointed his Cabinet – and still found time to telephone Donald Trump, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. For a Prime Minister who built his platform on domestic policy, it was a telling start.
It needed to be. Foreign policy might not have ranked high on Burnham's agenda, but the world does not pause for Britain. The challenges that consumed Keir Starmer – the Ukraine War, the strikes on Iran, Trump's unpredictability, the EU reset – will demand his successor's attention too. Burnham seems to know it: his new Chancellor, John Healey, resigned from Starmer's cabinet over the lack of defence funding. Healey confirmed soon after that Britain “will meet our commitments on defence to our international allies”.
More will be needed from the new government, for the global system created after the Second World War, and only modestly altered after the Cold War, is now under serious assault.
An empty chair
When G20 countries’ leaders gathered in Johannesburg last November, one chair stood empty: for the first time, a member state – the US, no less – refused to attend. Many saw it as the moment the old order finally died. They were wrong. The remaining leaders adopted a declaration anyway, on climate action among much else. The global order is in crisis. But the patient is not dead. Yet.
The threats come from three directions. Russia's aggression against Ukraine has made cooperation with Western countries impossible, above all in the UN Security Council. China endorses the existing institutions in words while building parallel ones in practice: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the expanded BRICS group of nations – multilateralism with Chinese characteristics.
Most strikingly, the US is dismantling its own creation. It openly flouts international law – seizing Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, striking Iran, laying claim to Greenland. It has withdrawn from the World Health Organisation, moved to exit the UN climate framework and slashed funding to UN bodies. The US keeps its commitment to Nato deliberately ambiguous. And Trump undermines the free-trade system America built, wielding tariffs as instruments of coercion.
Keeping the G20 alive
Europeans benefited hugely from the old order and now struggle to uphold it. Defending it is not altruism but self-interest – especially for Britain, which helped build it.
Europe is showing a willingness to defend it. The EU-Mercosur agreement, signed in January, creates one of the world's largest free-trade areas – built deliberately around a reluctant US. In security, American ambiguity over its commitments to Europe and its wavering support for Ukraine have pushed others to step up: the E3 of Britain, France and Germany, the “coalition of the willing”, and the European Political Community.
All offer Britain a seat at the European table that Brexit otherwise denied it. At Johannesburg, it was a fragile alignment of Europe and the Global South that kept the G20 alive and climate in the final communiqué. Cooperation, it turns out, does not require Washington's permission.
UK a ‘poverty stricken disaster’?
What, then, should Britain's new Prime Minister do? Preserve as much of the current order as possible, while shaping what might replace it. Three issues stand out.
First, Europe. Burnham and his Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, arrive as blank slates in foreign policy – inexperienced but also a fresh start. The postponed UK-EU summit is an early chance to break the impasse: on the stalled youth mobility scheme, where London must move on EU students, and on integrating Britain more deeply into Europe's rearmament efforts. Closer cooperation on energy, migration and defence would show Britain is once again a dependable partner.
Second, America. Burnham should learn from his predecessor's mistakes and bid farewell to the comforting myth of a Special Relationship. Trump remains unpredictable, and seems to take personal delight in lashing out at Britain – dismissing it recently as a “poverty stricken disaster”. Appeasing such an ally bought Starmer little; Europeans fared best when they showed resolve, as over Greenland. Firmness and coordination with partners in defence of shared interests is not anti-Americanism. But it is a language this White House understands.
Third, the world. In 2027, the UK inherits the G20 presidency from Trump: a rare opportunity to restore breadth and legitimacy to one of the global order's key institutions, and to position Britain as a bridge between Europe and the wider world.
Climate change, AI and defending free trade
Climate should sit at the centre of that agenda. Miliband's background could prove invaluable, both in pressing for emissions cuts and in confronting their consequences, from extreme weather to the migration and conflict it may fuel. AI belongs there too: firms in the US, China and elsewhere operate largely in a regulatory vacuum, and Britain's early AI safety summitry and the EU's AI Act offer the basis for a global conversation. And Britain, which prospered under the global trading system, should defend free trade – through deeper integration with the European market and by making open trade a theme of its presidency.
None of this will come naturally to a Prime Minister focused on fixing things at home, and little of it might win votes at the ballot box. Yet the world is on fire – at times quite literally – the international order is under strain, and Britain cannot disentangle itself from either. A more confident and agile British foreign policy, at odds with Trump where necessary and always in concert with like-minded partners, can help protect that order and contain the challenges ahead.
The phone calls of Burnham's first afternoon were a promising beginning. The task now is to turn courtesy into strategy – and to prove that the man from the town hall belongs at the global top table.
Dr Bernhard Blumenau is a senior lecturer in international history and politics at the University of St Andrews
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