Should Starmer stand up to Trump?
Feb 05, 2025•14 min
Episode description
Trump has blown the Overton window wide open. In a press conference yesterday alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president outlined his intention to ‘take over the Gaza Strip’, displacing 1.8 million Palestinians in the process. His plan – if you can call it that – is to build ‘the Riviera of the Middle East’. Many of the countries Trump has earmarked to resettle displaced Gazans have already condemned the takeover. How will the international community respond?
Elsewhere, Keir Starmer seems more motivated by a desire to observe the rule of international law than his buddy across the pond. The Chagos deal seems set to be completed in the ‘coming weeks’. However, the new Mauritian prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, claimed yesterday that Starmer cut a deal – in the presence, rather curiously, of his Attorney General, Lord Hermer – that would effectively double the £9 billion first offered to the country to take back the archipelago. Why are they pressing ahead with this deal? And, seven months into this government, are we any closer to discovering what ‘progressive realism’ actually is?
James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Michael Stephens, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
Elsewhere, Keir Starmer seems more motivated by a desire to observe the rule of international law than his buddy across the pond. The Chagos deal seems set to be completed in the ‘coming weeks’. However, the new Mauritian prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, claimed yesterday that Starmer cut a deal – in the presence, rather curiously, of his Attorney General, Lord Hermer – that would effectively double the £9 billion first offered to the country to take back the archipelago. Why are they pressing ahead with this deal? And, seven months into this government, are we any closer to discovering what ‘progressive realism’ actually is?
James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Michael Stephens, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.