Europe’s absent leaders risk surrendering peace

In an era where authoritarian regimes increasingly flout international norms, the apparent frailty of European leadership is not just a regional concern but a catalyst for the erosion of the rules-based global order. From the United Nations General Assembly to the battlefields of Eastern Europe, the inability of key European figures to project strength and unity has emboldened our adversaries. Absent leadership that may now be undermining the very principles that have underpinned the UK’s post-World War peace dividend.  

President Emmanuel Macron governs without a parliamentary mandate, limiting France’s ability to project strategic leadership or sustain long-term commitments. In the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer leads a government that fought and won a muscular General Election; today, diminished, he governs with a shrug.  By Labour winning big, but thinking small, its support has collapsed to sub-20%, leaving it politically constrained and subservient to its emboldened back-benchers.  13 significant U-turns since taking power, surely the latest whiplash U-Turn on ID cards wasn’t the change the PM envisaged when he promised you ‘need now to feel the change’ in his New Year message.

Meanwhile, in Germany, Chancellor Merz is preoccupied with re-energising the German economy, challenging EU emissions regulations, taking action to squeeze energy prices, and removing excess compliance on supply chains, leaving Friedrich with little bandwidth for international leadership. Belgium’s block on utilising approximately €210 billion in Russian-seized assets to aid the fight against Russia’s illegal invasion has only increased Europe’s dependence on the US and, possibly more dangerously, weakened the EU's collective unity, allowing smaller but more assertive players like Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to bully the bloc. Even NATO, the transatlantic bulwark, appears diminished after the political establishment installed its friend, Mark Rutte, as Secretary General. Rutte's informal reference to US President Donald Trump as "Daddy"—a slip that gave human evidence to Europe's subservience to American leadership. The response of our European leaders to the sensation that power is running away from them was to speak of a "Coalition of the Willing", but words can’t replace action. Over the months, words spoken by senior European politicians have increasingly rung hollow, as different European allies shy away from tough decisions - acceptance that Europe’s defence will be decided in the White House is the accepted position; a conclusion that even Polish President Karol Nawrocki now confirms he is resigned to.    

The establishment is failing us, the people of the UK. The air-raid clangers, the likes we had in the 1940s, should be wailing throughout society, as the erosion of norms and the international rules-based order, built on adherence to treaties, human rights, and sovereignty, would appear to be crumbling around us.

The US action on the 3^rd of January wasn’t without immense pre-planning and contemplation – the audacious military incision into Venezuela is clear evidence that the US has awoken to the realisation that living by the rules of international law only truly protects its national interest for as long as it remains in the interests of its opponents to adhere to those same rules.   As articulated before the UN General Assembly on January 5, 2026, the United States conducted a tactical incursion into Caracas on January 3, 2026, to bring justice to Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Maduro had captured the Venezuelan State to exploit America's commitment to international law to protect his alleged mass narcotics enterprises from US justice. January 3rd is the date on which the US chose to prioritise its own laws and national interests over international rules.  The US finally took action to defend itself from the evil narcotics industry - primarily opioids and cocaine – that has for decades proliferated communities throughout the US, inflicted staggering costs, increased healthcare spending, and placed a massive burden on law enforcement, all told, believed to exceed $1 trillion annually in health, employment, and social damage.   

The US’s unilateral action in Venezuela underscores how reliance on rules can be a vulnerability when your adversaries ignore them. 

Russia’s seizure of Crimea in March 2014, President Xi Jinping’s imposition of the National Security Law on Hong Kong in 2020, Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Iran's prolonged violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty should, with hindsight, prompt our political leaders to recognise the change in threat. Leadership would have been to articulate these real threats to our way of life to the nation, as Churchill did in 1936; “the era of procrastination…is coming to a close.  In its place we are entering a period of consequences”.

Today, the 24hr News talking-heads speak of a world order retreating into hemispheric spheres of influence - where powers like China and Russia carve out dominance.  But the question is: where are we?  Where is Europe? Where is the UK? Europe’s procrastinations are accelerating the decline of our influence and, frankly, leaving the UK unnecessarily exposed to emboldened international threats. The Caracas incision and the US’s posturing over Greenland can’t be answered by a joint statement about Denmark’s sovereign rights; our leaders need to demonstrate to the White House, yes, and also to our potential adversaries, that we, the UK, will make the sacrifices necessary to protect our values and our way of life.

Unfortunately, the PM’s paralysis was on full display during his New Year's BBC interview with Laura Kuenssberg. As former Human Rights lawyers, we glimpsed Sir Keir grappling with the fear that applying international rules may only work when all parties respect those rules. So, Sir Starmer’s government's preference is to spend scarce Parliamentary time debating ideological issues such as the rights and wrongs of the Terminally Ill Adults (End 0f Life) Bill, extending workers rights to day-one new starts or now consuming immense Government resources trying to restrict access to jury trials, and egged on by the Liberal Democrats, potentially wasting Parliament’s time discussing the stale arguments on economic – not defence - alignment with the EU single market.  Labour surely knows it will fail to win the argument on greater economic alignment when their Government is already having to conceal the uncomfortable truths that increased co-operation with the EU comes at too great a cost: the UK has just walk away from greater collaboration with the EU on defence procurement, as the membership fee demanded by Brussels was exorbitant, and the required £800million plus annual cost to rejoin the Erasmus student work-and-travel scheme is ridiculous. Levying punitive charges on collaboration, at a time when our adversaries want for nothing more than division in Europe, confirms the clear and present danger that a leadership vacuum in Europe is creating. Today’s political leaders are simply hoping others will protect us, and all new threats will merely disappear.   

Whilst the UK Parliament pretends to be busy itself ‘making important decisions’, as the international threats continue to mount, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum warned in October 2025  that we are now in "the most complex and interconnected threat environment we've ever seen."  Sir Starmer’s response to DG McCallum was to increase domestic welfare spending to 5 times what UK spends on Defence.

The UK Government is choosing Benefits Street over arming soldiers to fight for European freedoms on the streets of Druzhkivka, Ukraine.  A choice that was transmitted from the Dispatch Box to the corridors of the Kremlin, reassuring our foes that Britain is unlikely to materially increase defence spending as long as Sir Keir Starmer is UK Leader.

If Europe and, more critically, the United Kingdom are to regain relevance, it must shed the caricature of the naive rule-follower. Winston Churchill didn't await White House approval during the last major war in Europe; he acted decisively. Today, whilst the UK prioritises ‘being seen as the best’ at combating CO₂ emissions, rather than choosing to rebuilding our industry capacity, or enable the infrastructure UK needs to lead on AI, or possibly the most damaging choice of all, to prioritise the comforts of increasing welfare payment over mustering the political leadership necessary to match our defence spending to the risks we face - we the British people are being forced by the exiting political establishment to rely on hope; hope that a foreign government will take the decisions that will ultimately protect UK interests.

However, the threat to European political leaders may actually not come from Russia, China, Iran or any foreign foe – however much these countries wish to enable our decline – the danger may come from within our shores.  Ironically, whilst our political leaders procrastinate about global shifts, the electorate is becoming increasingly frustrated by the erosion of the social contract, disheartened after years of hard work, as their standard of living isn’t improving, and their local public services fail to meet the demands of today's Britain.  Hardworking people across Europe are aware that the world is changing: that the future for their families and children could not have looked bleaker in the last 80 years. Yet it's challenging to identify any political party articulating the need for Europe to muster the courage to defeat Russia and to demonstrate, as President Ronald Reagan eloquently put it, "we maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression." 

The leadership vacuum in Europe is strengthening our adversaries and fuelling the rise of alternative parties. In France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally is capitalising on voter frustration with Macron's weaknesses. Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) celebrates the erosion of the ‘firewall’ between mainstream parties and the far right.  In the UK, Nigel Farage's Reform Party garners support from disenfranchised voters, spouting how the UK is broken.  More in Common’s recent research confirms there is a trend in the UK, where particularly ‘disillusioned men have a powerful anti-incumbent sentiment’.  A sentiment that could upend our democracy if we, the British people, fail to find a leadership team that the majority, at least, can back to make Britain great again.