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Britain can’t ignore Europe and China at the same time

Criticism over UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s foreign policy is unserious.

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Slowly, gingerly, Britain is coming out of a decade of sulking in its room.

Mr Keir Starmer (pictured) is the first prime minister since Mr David Cameron to understand Britain’s place in the world.

PHOTO: AFP

Janan Ganesh

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Mr Keir Starmer’s visit to China last week was the first by a British prime minister for eight years. His attendance at a gathering of EU leaders this week is the first since Brexit. When Ms Rachel Reeves went to the Gulf last autumn, no chancellor of the exchequer had been for six years.

So, just to run through those destinations again: the world’s second-largest economy, the largest cross-national single market and a region that accounts for some 40 per cent of all sovereign investment globally. Perhaps the predecessors of Mr Starmer and Ms Reeves had more pressing engagements elsewhere.

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