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…