Starmer's Gamble: Britain's Making Deals While Washington Burns

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Keir Starmer is doing something quietly radical. While Donald Trump is attacking the Pope and sending mixed signals on gas prices, Britain’s Prime Minister is making a series of moves that amount to a deliberate step away from automatic Washington alignment.

The headline that should’ve gotten more attention: the UK will not join Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports. Instead, British minesweepers and anti-drone capabilities will keep operating in the region to maintain shipping routes. That’s not a small thing. That’s Britain saying it has its own strategic interests, and they don’t always match Trump’s.

Then there’s the legislation Starmer’s pushing to let the government adopt EU single market rules without Parliament voting on each one. And the scrapping of the “Hillsborough Law veto” that gave spy chiefs power to block their own testimony at public inquiries.

These aren’t disconnected moves. They’re a pattern. Starmer’s building a Britain that’s more autonomous, more transparent, and less dependent on aligning with whatever Washington’s doing this week.

The Iran Play: Not Joining the Blockade

Here’s what’s actually happening on the water. Trump wants to blockade Iranian ports. It’s part of his maximum-pressure strategy—the same one he tried in his first term. Starmer’s response? Thanks, but no. The UK’s maintaining its own operations to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for global shipping.

This matters because roughly 21% of global maritime trade flows through that waterway. If shipping grinds to a halt, energy prices spike everywhere. Starmer knows that hyperinflating British fuel costs isn’t a winning domestic strategy, especially when you’re already dealing with cost-of-living anger that put your party in power.

The political read here is interesting. Starmer can’t openly criticize Trump—they’ll need the U.S. relationship intact. But he can quietly maintain British military presence in the region and keep saying the shipping lanes need to stay open. It’s a diplomatic workaround. Not a rebellion. A redirect.

Trump’s already shown he has no boundaries on who he’ll target. He went after the Pope. That’s a useful reminder: when you’re managing a relationship with this White House, you can’t assume good faith or strategic patience. You have to protect your own interests while the lights are still on.

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk / Pexels

The EU Rules Shuffle: Taking Back Some Autonomy

Now the EU single market rules thing. On the surface it sounds technical. In practice, it’s Starmer saying: we’re going to align with EU standards when it makes sense, but we’re not asking Parliament’s permission every single time.

This is the opposite of the hard Brexit narrative. Remember 2016? The whole point was “taking back control” from Brussels. Starmer’s essentially saying: we took back control, and we’ve decided we want some of those EU rules anyway. But we’re keeping the process streamlined.

My read: this is pragmatism beating ideology. The EU’s standards on food safety, environmental rules, product regulations—they work. Trying to maintain separate British standards for everything is expensive and creates friction. Starmer’s choosing the efficient path over the symbolic one.

The kicker is he’s doing this through legislation that centralizes power in the executive branch. Parliament doesn’t get to vote on each rule adoption. That’s going to bother some MPs, and I’d expect the Conservatives to make noise about it. But Starmer’s betting that voters care more about whether their food is safe and their power bills are manageable than they do about parliamentary procedure.

He’s probably right.

The Spy Chiefs and Transparency

Then there’s the Hillsborough Law veto. This one’s actually important for how democracies function.

After the 1989 Hillsborough disaster—when 97 people died in a stadium crush—inquiries kept hitting walls because security services could refuse to let their people testify publicly. The law that resulted gave spy chiefs a veto. They could block disclosure of intelligence or operational details.

Starmer’s scrapping that. Security chiefs will still have input. They can argue for redactions. But they can’t just say no and have that stick as law.

This is a direct bet on accountability. It’s saying: we trust our security apparatus, but we don’t trust them without oversight. And we certainly don’t trust them to be the judge of their own transparency.

It’s also a subtle flex against the idea that security concerns automatically override everything else. In the Trump era, when you’ve got a president attacking religious leaders and sending signals he might purge the intelligence community, watching another democracy actively strengthen oversight is… reassuring, actually.

Photo by Anna Keibalo / Pexels

The Domestic Stuff: Deep-Fried Food and Tax Rows

The school dinner plan—banning deep-fried food, pushing vegetables and whole grains—is basic public health policy. It’s also slightly funny that Starmer’s doing this while Reform UK’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, is caught in a £91,000 tax situation involving a property company.

Tice’s party claims it’s a “minor administrative error.” That’s the classic move: call it paperwork when it’s your guy, call it a scandal when it’s the other guy. The numbers are real. The tax wasn’t paid. Whether it was negligence or something worse, that’s the ongoing story.

The deeper point: Starmer’s trying to look clean and future-focused (healthier kids, stronger rules). Meanwhile, he’s watching the opposition deal with its own competence questions. That’s not a permanent advantage—politics moves fast. But it’s the current table.

The Bigger Picture: What Starmer’s Actually Doing

Connect the dots. Iran policy independence. EU rules flexibility. Forcing transparency on spy agencies. Tightening health standards in schools.

Starmer’s building a version of Britain that’s:

More strategically independent. Not anti-American. But not reflexively following Washington into every decision.

More pragmatically European. Accepting that EU standards often make sense without pretending that means Brexit was a mistake.

More transparent. Reducing the power of unelected officials to hide behind security claims.

More health-conscious domestically. Small moves, but moves nonetheless.

This is the opposite of Liz Truss cosplaying as a Thatcher clone or Boris Johnson treating government like a reality TV show. Starmer’s doing something rarer in British politics right now: he’s actually thinking about how to govern.

The Trump variable is real though. We don’t know how the U.S. relationship holds up over the next two years. If Trump decides to punish Britain for not joining the Iran blockade, or decides he wants trade concessions in exchange for a decent bilateral relationship, Starmer’s going to face pressure.

My prediction: he’ll negotiate hard but won’t fully surrender autonomy. He’ll find ways to give Trump tactical wins (maybe on some trade issue, or on intelligence sharing) while protecting the strategic independence he’s building on Iran and the EU. It’ll be messy. It always is.

But here’s what I actually think: Starmer’s recognizing something the political class in both countries has been slow to admit. The Trump era is about managing volatility, not building grand alliances. And volatility means you need your own power base. Your own rules. Your own clarity about what you won’t bend on.

The UK’s smaller than the U.S., so it has less leverage. But it’s also more honest about the constraints. That’s actually a stronger position than pretending you can always defer to Washington and come out ahead.

What I’m Watching

• Iran shipping data through Q2 2025. If British minesweepers successfully keep traffic flowing while Trump’s blockade attempt stalls, that’s a major validation of Starmer’s gamble. Watch for actual tonnage figures and whether energy prices stay stable.

• The EU rules legislation timeline. When does this actually pass Parliament? Will there be a significant Conservative rebellion? And more importantly: what’s the first rule the government tries to adopt without parliamentary vote? That’ll tell you how far they’re actually pushing autonomy.

• Trump’s response. Has he publicly criticized the Iran decision? Does he try to retaliate through trade negotiations or intelligence-sharing disputes? Watch his social media and any presidential comments on UK relations. Silence might actually be more ominous than noise.

• The Tice tax investigation. Is this actually resolved as a “minor administrative error,” or does the story expand? If Reform keeps climbing in polls while their deputy leader’s dealing with tax questions, that’s a structural weakness Starmer will exploit.