Labour’s manifesto says on page 120 under “Britain Reconnected”:
“Labour is fully committed to AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership with Australia and the United States.”
Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet seems to have a different view altogether. Definite non-fan Stephen Kinnock, Shadow Minister for Asia and the Pacific, said that AUKUS was “betraying the French”:
“What we would have done is do it in a way that didn’t involve betraying the French, frankly, which is what it really looks like, and there was no need for that. Foreign policy’s changed a lot over the last 150 years but one thing that has not changed is that conservative politicians always get a boost with their membership by having a go at the French.”
Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey has spoken out against the “Indo-Pacific tilt” that AUKUS represents – he called it a “serious flaw” in UK strategy. Healey is likely forming his view on the basis of Labour members’ – they declared 70-30 that the security partnership “undermines world peace.” Some of the 21,000 working on the SSN-AUKUS submarine class might want to keep an eye out for alternative employment…
Paula Barker, Liverpool Wavertree MP backing Andy Burnham, told Times Radio there wouldn’t be trouble from the markets under Burnham:
“The markets will have to fall in line.”