Returning from an overseas trip last year that had been broadly seen as a success, Rishi Sunak was heard privately observing that a truism of foreign policy is that even when you get things right, voters tend to not especially notice or care. Time will tell whether Sunak’s decision to throw in the UK’s lot with US-led attacks on Houthi forces will stem a spate of attacks on international shipping. But for now, the strike has won support from the bulk of British MPs, despite a few qualms about a lack of prior parliamentary consultation.
Almost immediately after chairing the cabinet call which rubber-stamped the mission on Thursday evening, Sunak departed on an even less controversial foreign policy mission, heading to Kyiv to promise more UK military aid for Ukraine. Does all this have much meaning for the trajectory of UK politics in an election year? In one sense not especially, not least because it seems fairly clear that had Keir Starmer been the occupant of No 10, policy towards the Houthis and Ukraine would be almost identical. But when you are a prime minister staring balefully at a 20-point deficit in the polls, even the traditionally more bipartisan arena of foreign policy will inevitably be viewed through the prism of political manoeuvrings. And this is where the incumbent PM has an advantage. One of the other cliches of overseas policy is that even if surveys routinely show it ranks low on the lists of issues voters cite as a priority, it rarely does a prime minister harm to be photographed alongside other leaders, especially charismatic and popular ones like Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president. Boris Johnson was a famously keen supporter of the Ukrainian cause and a habitual visitor to Kyiv, and Sunak will have enjoyed the optics of Zelenskiy awarding him Ukraine’s Order of Liberty, however sheepish he looked as he was handed the medal inside a vast presentation case. “There is definitely something in the claim that standing next to famous international figures reinforces the sense of a person’s seriousness, particularly if they are someone lacking in seriousness,” said Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe thinktank and professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London. “It’s also one of the very few of areas where Sunak has a united party. There are vanishingly few issues now where all his MPs will say ‘Well done’, and this is one of them.” The political downside for the prime minister is that when it comes to Yemen and Ukraine, such unanimity extends to most Labour MPs, and particularly to Starmer. One potential avenue for highlighting difference with Labour is the fact that the Houthi rebels began their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea after Israel’s invasion of Gaza in response to the 7 October massacre by Hamas, an issue Starmer’s party has seen frontbench resignations regarding his refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire. Similarly, a controversial bill banning local councils from boycotting Israel, voted on by MPs this week, is viewed by many as an attempt to create a wedge with Labour, and has faced criticism from some Conservative MPs. Menon also notes that a genuine political imperative for Sunak is trying to quell the attacks on vessels in the Red Sea – the impact on commercial shipping, with many container ships now being re-routed around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, has a knock-on effect on not just journey times but also cost. “As well as being an administration that is pretty happy to stick closely to the Americans, this is an administration that is obsessed with the cost of living and the dangers of inflation returning,” Menon said. “Voters’ awareness of foreign policy might be limited, but with Covid, and the war in Ukraine, and to an extent with Brexit, the idea that stuff that happens outside our borders has a material impact on us in our lives is, I think, now fairly standard. “Certainly, your average voter is probably more likely to know what a supply chain is now than would have been the case five years ago.”