issue: Foreign Policy & Defense

Ainsley in IPS Journal: ‘Britain is moving into a multi-party era’

Posted on by Alex Terr

[…]

Labour suffered a historic defeat in last week’s local elections, leaving both the party and Prime Minister Keir Starmer badly weakened. In response, Starmer tried to regain the initiative with a forceful speech. Did he succeed?

He made a strong speech yesterday in making the case for why his government should be allowed to continue. It was quite personal, which is something he hasn’t always been able to do. But there are still many question marks over whether his leadership will last until the end of this Parliament, which is what he was elected to do. Principally because of concerns within his own parliamentary party following Thursday’s election results and a fairly long run-up of rumbling discontent about whether he really has the credentials to lead the country in a moment of global uncertainty and domestic difficulty. However, it remains to be seen whether it will be enough for the parliamentary party to get behind him.

Starmer insisted he would fight any leadership challenge and would not walk away from his responsibilities as prime minister. How secure is his position?

Technically, he was elected for five years, so there doesn’t have to be another election until July 2029. On paper, he is in a secure position and he’s got a big majority in Parliament. Theoretically, he should be able to get through the laws the government wants to pass.

In practice, however, his position has been weakened by these elections and by growing discontent in the country, which had already been visible in the opinion polls beforehand. The elections really confirmed what the polls have been saying for some time: like in a number of other European countries, the main centre-ground parties – both Labour and the Conservatives – are losing support to Reform UK on the right and the Green Party on the left.

And this is the first time that has really happened in the UK. I think the multi-party element of what’s happening is being overlooked. There is a lot of fixation on Keir Starmer and Labour without fully recognising that voters are abandoning the traditional centre-ground parties and moving towards what were previously minority parties. But none of those parties currently commands more than about a quarter of the electorate.

[…]

Read more in IPS Journal

Ainsley on ABC Australia’s Radio National Breakfast: More than 80 Labour MPs are now calling for the British Prime Minister to resign

Posted on by Alex Terr

Critics and supporters of the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer are asking how long he can hold the top job.

More than 80 Labour MPs have now publicly urged Sir Keir to resign immediately or draw up an exit timetable, with four ministers stepping down.

Meanwhile more than 100 Labour MPs have signed a statement opposing a leadership contest. So which side will prevail?

Listen on ABC Australia

Jacoby for Washington Monthly: Trump Leaves Ukraine’s Future to Europe

Posted on by Alex Terr

Of the many standing ovations King Charles III received in Congress last week, few were more surprising than the response to his comments about the war in Ukraine. Britain and the United States have stood “shoulder to shoulder” for centuries, he declared, through two world wars, the Cold War, 9-11, and Afghanistan. “Today … that same, unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine”—and with that, more than 400 U.S. Senators and Representatives, Democrats and Republicans, leapt to their feet in applause.

But President Donald Trump is determined to go his own way despite the consensus, and there were more signs last week that the U.S. has washed its hands of Kyiv’s four-year-old conflict with Moscow.

First, America’s acting ambassador in Kyiv resigned—the second envoy to quit in just 12 months—citing Washington’s dwindling support for its one-time ally. Then Trump had another friendly 90-minute phone call with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. Apparently forgetting that Moscow has been supplying Iran with intelligence about American targets in the Persian Gulf, the 47th president once again underlined their long friendship and praised the dictator for what Trump sees as his willingness to agree to a Ukraine ceasefire. Speaking later from the Oval Office, Trump reminded reporters that the United States is no longer giving Kyiv American weapons or ammunition, and he dumped responsibility for Ukraine’s future in Europe’s lap.

“We helped [Europe] with Ukraine, and they made a mess [of it],” the president maintained, twisting the historical record to serve his grudge of the moment. “Ukraine has nothing to do with [us]. We’re an ocean apart. It has to do with them.”

Read more in Washington Monthly

Jacoby on Background Briefing: A Report From Kyiv on Trump Checking in With the Boss Yesterday in His Hour and Half Phone Call With Putin

Posted on by Alex Terr

Background Briefing with Ian Masters · A Report From Kyiv on Trump Checking in With the Boss Yesterday in His Phone Call With Putin

 

Then we go to Kyiv, Ukraine to speak with Tamar Jacoby, the Director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s New Ukraine Project. She was a senior writer and justice editor at Newsweek and, before that, the deputy editor of the New York Times op-ed page. She is the author of Displaced: The Ukrainian Refugee Experience and we discuss how yesterday Trump checked in with the boss in and hour and half phone call with Putin and Tamar’s article at The Washington Monthly, “The U.S.-Europe Rift: How Trump’s Iran War is Making it Worse.”

Partnering with Ukraine: Rearming Europe Through Defence Industrial Cooperation

Posted on by Alex Terr

Four years into the full-scale war in Ukraine, with a second major conflagration raging in the Persian Gulf and an increasing number of Western countries talking about adapting  Ukraine’s way of war, there is growing recognition of the potential mutual benefit that  can be derived from more cooperation between Kyiv and the West. 

Policy makers and practitioners in the West and Ukraine have argued for exploring new forms of cooperation above and beyond Western military aid. Kyiv could give or sell its innovative, low-cost, battle-proven weapons to the West. Training, now largely one directional – Europeans training Ukrainian fighters – could evolve into more of a two way street. Western strategists have much to learn from Ukraine about how to integrate  unmanned vehicles – air, land, and sea drones – into their battle plans. But one of the most  promising approaches, often neglected in the West, is collaborative manufacturing. 

Ukraine has been talking about industrial cooperation for more than two years, and a handful of European countries have explored promising experiments. Under the so-called  ‘Danish model’, launched in mid-2024, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, and several other  donors alongside the European Union, bolstered Ukraine’s defence procurement by covering  the cost of selected arms purchases. More recently, some dozen Ukrainian companies have  signed agreements to produce weaponry in Western Europe, either alone or as part of a joint  venture with a Western firm.  

The war in the Persian Gulf has spurred new international interest in Ukrainian defence technology. Yet by and large, these are still small experiments – ingenious ideas with significant promise for both the West and Ukraine, but not yet meaningful steps toward the  integration of Ukrainian and European security. 

This paper asks why. What have these experiments hoped to achieve? What have they  accomplished? What lessons have been learned by Ukraine and its international partners? What if anything can be done to improve these fledgling initiatives and, most important,  scale them? 

The paper concludes with recommendations for policy makers, manufacturers, investors,  and facilitating middlemen. What can be done to build on the experiments under way, including the Danish model and a handful of government-sponsored joint ventures – an  approach Kyiv calls ‘Build With Ukraine’? Europe’s future security may turn on the results.

Read the full report.

Jacoby for Washington Monthly: The U.S.-Europe Rift: How Trump’s Iran War is Making it Worse

Posted on by Alex Terr

There is no shortage of uncertainties amid the fighting in the Persian Gulf: Is it over? Who won? Will Iran emerge stronger or weaker? How badly will the world economy be damaged? Yet two things are clear: The conflict dealt a deep, perhaps lasting blow to American global leadership, and it is straining an already troubled transatlantic relationship—to the detriment of both the U.S. and Europe.

But there may be one upside: The rift between the U.S. and Europe could accelerate continental efforts to prepare for a future in which America no longer provides a reliable security guarantee.

American supporters of the Iran War are furious with Europe. My email inbox is filled with messages from friends who see the continent’s refusal to join the fighting as a craven betrayal of the NATO alliance that has kept peace in Europe since the end of World War II. “Alienation,” “frustration,” “outrage,” “disgust”: the language grew sharper as the weeks wore on—and of course, no one was madder than President Donald Trump.

One Republican ally who spoke to the president in mid-March told the press he had “never heard him so angry.” “COWARDS,” Trump bellowed on social media. “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself,” he warned Europeans, “the USA won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.”

But there’s another way to see the widening divide between Europe and Washington.

Read more in Washington Monthly

Jacoby for Washington Monthly: Ukraine’s Way of War is Coming to the Persian Gulf

Posted on by Alex Terr

Donald Trump has long sought to disguise his dislike of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But his contempt showed through in mid-March when he rebuffed Kyiv’s offer to help defend the U.S. and its allies in the Persian Gulf. The “last person we need help from is Zelensky,” the 47th president said scornfully in two news interviews. “We know more about drones than anybody. We have the best drones in the world, actually.”

American allies in the Gulf see things differently. Nearly a dozen Middle Eastern countries have approached Kyiv in recent weeks seeking cooperation as they struggle to fend off Iranian drones and missiles. Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu has called Kyiv to initiate talks. Even traditionally pacifist Japan is considering buying Ukrainian drones, and Zelensky has sent some 230 drone experts—advisers and pilots—to the Gulf. Last week, he signed long-term security agreements with Saudi Arabia and Qatar and promised more were on the way.

What everyone but Trump seems to understand: After more than four years of fiercely competitive drone warfare, Ukraine is the world’s drone superpower with some of the best weaponry and an agile, innovative defense industrial base to back it up.

But the opening this creates—for Ukraine, the U.S., and its allies—will be squandered if the parties fail to seize the opportunity.

Read more in Washington Monthly

Ainsley in The New York Times: ‘What If Donald Shouts at Me?’ Trump Sours on British Leader Over Iran War

Posted on by Alex Terr

[…]

Claire Ainsley, the director of the Center-Left Renewal Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, said Mr. Starmer is facing the same challenges with Mr. Trump that his counterparts have.

“All leaders had to grapple with how to deal with Trump,” said Ms. Ainsley, who served as Mr. Starmer’s political director from 2020 to 2022, before the Labour Party won the 2024 general election. “The U.K. dealt with the situation pretty well, establishing a personal relationship with the president that has allowed them to have a more candid dialogue even when they disagree.”

[…]

Read more in The New York Times

Manno for EducationNext: The Social Wealth Gap

Posted on by Alex Terr

In today’s economy, what you know still matters, but who you know—and who knows you—matters just as much.

Young people from affluent, well-connected families often inherit a quiet advantage that includes access to mentors, family friends, alumni networks, and managers who can offer advice, open doors, and vouch for them. Their peers from low-income or first-generation immigrant families are more likely to graduate socially impoverished. They earn their diploma but lack the relationships that turn credentials into opportunity.

Call it America’s social wealth gap.

We talk endlessly about the deficits K–12 and college students have in learning, skills, and finances. We talk much less about the missing ingredient that converts credentials into a career: social capital. If education leaders and policymakers want to expand opportunity and strengthen the talent pipeline, they have to treat students’ relationships—not just their diplomas and resumes—as critical infrastructure.

Read more in EducationNext

Ainsley in Politico EU: Keep calm and carry on: Britain’s finance minister tries to dodge the Biden trap

Posted on by Alex Terr

[…]

Labour MPs and aides tried to learn lessons from the Democrats’ defeat in 2024, with several exchanges and meetings brokered through center-left U.S. think tanks such as the Progressive Policy Institute.

Claire Ainsley, director of the PPI’s project on center-left renewal, said: “The British government appears to be learning the lessons from the Democrats, which is talk about the economy in the way people experience it.”

But, Ainsley went on, “the Democrats also had very strong economic growth in which to do that and that is not the projection for the British economy in the 2020s. So Labour has to be very careful about not promising that people are going to be better when there are so many uncertainties.”

The U.K. government adviser referenced above added: “Things have definitely moved on from 2024 when there was this idea that doing kind of Biden-y things would result in being rewarded.” Likewise, they added, “[Trump’s] economic numbers are terrible. They’re not something to emulate.”

[…]

Read more in Politico EU

Jacoby in Background Briefing: As Russia’s War on Ukraine Enters Its Fifth Year, A Report From Kyiv On How the Ukrainians Are Holding Up

Posted on by Alex Terr

Background Briefing with Ian Masters · As Russia’s War on Ukraine Enters Its Fifth Year, How Are Ukrainians Holding Up

 

We begin with the fifth year on Russia’s war on Ukraine beginning today and go to Kyiv to assess how the Ukrainian people are dealing with a bitter winter, constant Russian attacks on civilian targets and a United States under Donald Trump that has cut military and economic support while cozying up to Russia’s ruthless dictator who started this war and appears to have no interest an any real peace short of Ukraine’s capitulation. Joining us is Tamar Jacoby, the Kyiv-based director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s New Ukraine Project. She was a senior writer and justice editor at Newsweek and, before that, the deputy editor of the New York Times op-ed page. She is the author of Displaced: The Ukrainian Refugee Experience and we discuss her article at The Washington Monthly, “Ukraine: Requiem for a Citizen Soldier: My friend, an entrepreneur turned exemplary officer, was killed in action in eastern Ukraine this year. Like his comrades, he knew what he was fighting for.”

Listen to the interview here. 

Ainsley for The Mirror: Nigel Farage’s Reform are not the workers’ champions – look at their policies

Posted on by Alex Terr

Reform UK are eyeing up a big win in Greater Manchester at this month’s Gorton & Denton by-election.

Nigel Farage and his band of ex-Tories are hoping to persuade voters disillusioned with Labour in Government that they are the workers’ champions. But actions speak louder than words, and the actions of Reform and their populist allies show they are not to be trusted as the workers’ friend.

Just take a look at America, where millions of workers who were fed up of the status quo voted for Donald Trump. Yet one year on, his policies of slapping tariffs on foreign goods and chopping and changing is pushing up prices for American workers.

Meanwhile, his wealthy cronies are raking it in for themselves, with the Trump family fortune ballooning by $1billion since he was elected for the second time, and 30 Trump donors have received benefits or advantages. No wonder his poll ratings are taking a dive as ordinary Americans who were promised change start to doubt he can deliver on what matters to them.

Read more in The Mirror. 

Ainsley in ABC Australia: UK political crisis deepens after PM’s chief of staff quits

Posted on by Alex Terr

Buckingham Palace says King Charles is ready to support any police investigation into his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

British police have confirmed they are assessing information provided to them, allegedly showing that the former prince Andrew had passed confidential reports to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while the former royal was British trade envoy more than a decade ago.

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to resign over a decision to hire Lord Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.

The former ambassador’s name appears thousands of times in the files.

  • Guest: Claire Ainsley, Former Director of Policy to Keir Starmer, now Director of the Project on Center-Left Renewal at the Progressive Policy Institute

Listen to the interview here.