With the staccato bursting, the horns rang out in the control room of the front HMS Vanguard, sending the crew of a nuclear-armed Royal Navy submarine to the battle station. The commander's voice crackled over the intercom. “We'll set Condition 1SQ,” he said, ordering a series of ballistic missiles to be prepared for launch.
It was a drill that was made for a VIP visit last Monday. However, Starge had reason to be extremely careful when the submarine launch keys were shown where they were stored. The Prime Minister is the only person in Britain allowed to order a nuclear strike.
“Are you looking for ideal conditions?” The captain gently asked Mr. Sterner asserted softly as the captain explained how the pioneer had to be piloted to the appropriate depth to launch the Trident missile. Mr. Starmer leaned against the captain's chair, a blue glow from the bank of the screen reflected in his glasses.
After that, after he climbed a 32-foot ladder onto the submarine deck, Stage recalls his nearly seven months of mission. It is designed to wander quietly in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean and stop a nuclear conflict with Russia (at least one of the four Vanguard-class submarines is always on patrol). When its ability to protect Europe itself is being criticised, particularly from President Trump, Starmer said these powerful boats are ironic symbols of Britain's commitment to NATO.
“24 hours a day, 365 days a year, 55 years, 55 years,” Starmer told me after we cast and the Vanguard steamed towards our home port in Scotland. “It's been in peace for a very long time.”
Back on the tugboat, he took him to the shore of Clyde's first, and Mr. Stage sat alone, staring at the cloud window of the rally. For the 62-year-old British leader, what was stagnant nine months ago, found himself fighting to avoid the rupture of the post-World War II alliance between Europe and the United States.
“In our minds, we knew this moment came from just three years ago when Russian tanks rolled over the Ukrainian border,” Hoshi said of the growing vulnerability in Europe and tensions in the NATO alliance. “We need to treat this as a galvanized moment and grab the initiative.”
The crisis has caused Stage to tense and transform systematic, stupid human rights lawyers and Labour politicians into something similar to wartime leaders. For now, it has been largely overshadowed by fears about UK national security due to welfare reform and economic debates. Mr. Starmer summoned Winston Churchill and nodded to his party, postwar labor prime minister Clement Atley described the singular role of Britain in the more fractured west.
“A lot of people are urging us to choose between the US and Europe,” he said in one of three conversations last week. “Churchil didn't do that. Atley didn't. In my opinion, it's a big mistake to make a choice now.”
A temporary pause, Starmer added, “I think President Trump is saying that European countries need to need a greater burden for Europe's collective self-defense.”
The immediate question is whether Britain and Europe will play a meaningful role in Trump's negotiations with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. To ensure they do so, Starmer is trying to bring together the multinational military forces he willing to call the Union. According to him, the goal is to secure Ukraine's air, ports and borders after peace settlement.
“I don't trust Putin,” Starmer said. “I am confident that President Putin will try to insist that Ukraine should be vulnerable after the transaction.
The UK faces hurdles in all respects. Russia rejected the idea of ​​NATO peacekeeping forces. Trump has not yet provided security guarantees. Hoshi says that it is extremely important before the country commits its military. Besides Britain and France, if they led the first military planning conference for the Union on Thursday, no other European countries have done so.
British military and defense officials said they expected that ultimately several countries would contribute to the efforts of planes, vessels or troops. But regardless of political and diplomatic uncertainty, Starmer said he felt he had no choice but to preempt the pack.
“If we only move at the pace of the most careful people, we are going to move very slowly and we are not in a position where we need to be.”
Behind the diplomacy Starmer's whirlwind is an even more elusive goal. The 75-year-old alliance, who persuaded Trump of the value of NATO, has patronized the president as a club of free riders and protected him under the umbrella of American security, but has failed to make fair payments.
Unlike French President Emmanuel Macron and the next German prime minister, Friedrich Merz has not asked Europe to chart US-independent courses on security. He argues that “special relationships” are unshakable, and that in any case, the British and American troops are deeply intertwined (the US supplies Trident missiles to British submarines).
Starmer has cultivated Trump in a painstaking manner, calling him every few days, and went to the White House last month, signing an invitation from Charles III to visit the UK. The Prime Minister said Trump told him how much he valued his meeting with Queen Elizabeth II.
The two men may be almost unsimilar. Mr. Sturme has left-wing political roots, disciplined and understated. Trump is impulsive, vast, and stately with his imposing habits and instincts. However, they seem to have established a relationship of trust. Trump sometimes calls him on his cell phone, and one of Starmer's aides said he discussed his favorite topics, such as the Scotland golf resorts.
“I think there's a relationship between people, people, people, people,” Starmer said of Trump. “I like him and I respect him. I understand what he's trying to achieve.”
As for Trump's actions, from imposing a 25% tariff on British steel to the be-responsibility of Ukrainian President Voldymee Zelensky – the star said he recognized that the president had produced “a considerable degree of disorientation.” The correct response, he said, was not to be provoked by it.
“On the day when the oval office meeting with President Trump and Zelensky didn't go well, we were under pressure to come out very critically with the flower adjectives you know, to explain how others felt,” Starmer recalls. “I thought it would be better to pick up the phone and talk to both sides and try to get it back to the same page.”
Starmer sent his national security adviser Jonathan Powell to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to coach Zelensky and how to repair the fence with Trump. In multiple sessions, two British officials said they created the language to ease Zelensky's fears about a ceasefire where Russians continue to shoot.
Starmer then called Trump to relay Kiev's progress and laid the foundation for the phone call between him and Zelensky. When the president spoke again, Zelensky threw his support behind Trump's peaceful efforts.
In dedicating himself as a bridge, Starmer is trying to regain the role he played for decades before Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016. He said after a period when Britain became “indifference” and “absent” from the world stage, “if we like you, we're back.”
However, there are limitations to the UK's role in the post-Brexit world. The EU said it would remove British arms manufacturers from its defense fund worth 150 billion euros ($162 billion) unless the UK signs a security partnership agreement with Brussels. Analysts say the UK will find it difficult to act as a bridge if it doesn't spare it from the more drastic tariffs Trump has vowed to impose on the European Union.
For now, Starmer's political mansy has supported his assessment of the polls and has won him praise across the political spectrum. After a proper start, when he was tired of the hardened economy, Starmer said the crisis “injected urgency” into his government.
Everyone can guess how long it will last. The UK economy continues to skyrocket, with Starmer facing a backlash against decisions such as cutting back on payments to help retirees of winter heating bills. According to analysts, the benefits of being a politician can be evanescent as domestic issues continue to pile up.
Even the fire at London's current substation on Friday shutting down Heathrow airport and throwing tens of thousands of travel plans into chaos is a reminder of how the event temporarily dampens the government's agenda.
The painful trade-offs loom further down the road. Starmer has pledged to increase military spending to 2.5% of the UK's gross domestic product by 2027, and is funding it with cuts in overseas development assistance. It is not clear how the UK will pay for an even greater increase to its promised GDP within 10 years.
“We all enjoy the dividends of peace,” Starmer said. He said Europe is moving into a darker time. “I'm not heading towards Scar Mongoling,” he said, but added, “We need to think more quickly about defense and security.”
Three days after the submarine visit, Starmer took part in the Kielray ceremony for a new fleet of ballistic missile submarines built at the shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness in northwestern England. Four Dreadnought class ships, each almost lengthy of St. Paul's Cathedral, are scheduled to serve in the early 2030s at an estimated cost of £41 billion ($53 billion).
Standing in the sponge factory, Mr. Stage expressed his pride in this British statement as the rear section of the submarine towers above him. But it also reminded me of the military's growing state.
The Vanguard-class submarine, replaced by the Dreadnought, is a “very old kit” from nearly 30 years ago. This requires a long maintenance period. It expanded patrols on other ships in the fleet, putting acute pressure on the crew of about 130.
The tension was on display when Starmer visited Vanguard. The sailors said that as submarine regulations decreased, excellent food initially deteriorated. The four had returned to the spouse who gave birth to the baby while they were away. Others lost their family and only learned the news from the captain the night before their return.
“I have great respect for the team,” they said seven months of surviving at sea after stepping into a grouch from the weathered deck of the submarine. “But we shouldn't celebrate it.”
“This doubled my resolve to ensure we're making our capabilities faster,” he said.
