Starmer wraps up foreign mini-tour with visit to Macron in Paris

Keir Starmer has completed his planetary mini-tour by gathering Emmanuel Macron successful Paris for symbolically important if low-key talks that skirted astir specifics of Brexit oregon migration policy.

After discussions successful The Hague with EU instrumentality enforcement officials, and play meetings with Justin Trudeau and others in Montreal, the Labour person held 45 minutes of one-to-one talks with the French president astatine the Élysée Palace.

Given the protocols of an elected person gathering an absorption leader, neither broadside produced an authoritative readout of the meeting, though Starmer told reporters it had been “very constructive and positive”.

Starmer had heralded the sojourn with a paper interrogation promising that a Labour government would question important rewrites of Boris Johnson’s Brexit woody erstwhile it reaches a reappraisal constituent successful 2025. But this was lone a tangential portion of the discussions, arsenic was immoderate program to cooperate implicit asylum and migration.

“They didn’t truly sermon Brexit oregon migration successful immoderate depth,” an Élysée root said.

The root said the meeting, the archetypal clip the men had met beyond an brushwood astatine the Queen’s ceremonial past year, “could beryllium described arsenic lukewarm and engaging”.

“They discussed a scope of subjects from the economy, vigor security, enactment for Ukraine and touched connected strengthening France and the UK’s bilateral concern arsenic good arsenic the likelihood of different Trump-like presidency successful the US and their imaginativeness of China,” the root said.

“They evoked the value of reinforcement practice betwixt France and the UK truthful this concern continues to bring prosperity and information to the French and British.”

The men besides exchanged gifts, with Macron giving Starmer cufflinks with the logo of the French Republic, and Starmer giving the president an Arsenal garment with “Macron” connected the backmost and the fig 25, arsenic helium is the 25th president.

In a little TV interrogation aft the talks, Starmer, who was accompanied successful Paris by Rachel Reeves, the shadiness chancellor, and David Lammy, the shadiness overseas secretary, said helium and Macron had “a precise governmental treatment covering a batch of issues”.

“It was my archetypal accidental to accidental however overmuch I worth the narration betwixt our 2 countries, peculiarly erstwhile it comes to prosperity and information and how, if we are privileged capable to beryllium elected into power, we mean to physique connected that narration and marque it adjacent stronger than it is today,” helium said, refusing to accidental if helium believed Macron hoped for a Labour triumph successful the adjacent wide election.