Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said that the United Kingdom and France should work with Ukraine “in a level to stop fighting” with Russia-and “will then discuss this plan with the United States”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to a summit of European leaders, two days after an ardent exchange with American president Donald Trump in the White House.
Sir Keir told BBC One on Sunday with Laura Kuensberg that his “driving objective” at the moment was to act as a “bridge” between the two men.
Asked about the way he felt looking at the White House spit, Sir Keir sought to play the incident, saying “nobody wants to see this” and admitted that he felt “uncomfortable”.
The PM’s response was to get the phone the phone to its tromologists Trump and Zelensky the same night, in order to “bring us back to the central goal,” he said.
“There are a number of different roads that people can descend. One is to increase rhetoric as to how we are all indignant or not.”
He said that the other option was to “roll up my sleeves” and quickly call the two men – then also to speak to French President Emmanuel Macron of the role that the main nations of Europe would play.
“Because my reaction was that we have to fill this, we have to find a way to work together because in the end, we had three years of bloody conflict now, we must arrive at this lasting peace.”
He also rejected calls by SNP head Westminster Stephennn To cancel the invitation for a second state visit to the United Kingdom by Trump.
Sir Keir said: “I’m not going to be diverted by the SNP or others who are trying to repel rhetoric without really appreciating what is the most important thing at stake here – we are talking about peace in Europe.”
The Prime Minister received the support of the Liberal Democratic chief SIR Ed Davey, who said that the state visit should be used to obtain guarantees for Ukraine.
He said: “I think we should use each card we have, and I think it should be specified in the White House that the state visit would be authentic, we would welcome it here, but on condition that it intensifies-that the United States goes up to work with the United Kingdom and Europe to support and defend Ukraine.”
In his interview, Sir Keir took care to avoid blaming the line and insisted that he was “clear in my mind” that Trump “wants lasting peace”, answering “yes” when he was asked directly if he thought that Trump could trust him.
We could also trust Zelensky, he added, but not the Russian president Vladimir Putin-which is the reason why the United States must provide a security guarantee for any peace agreement.
The Prime Minister acknowledged that a European security guarantee should be led by a “coalition of will”.
Sir Keir said that “Europeans have risen in the past three years” but that “generally Europe must do more in its defense and safety and that is why I have said that we have to increase spending, we must increase the capacities and that we must coordinate more because in the Ukrainian conflict, we have seen that coordination is not there”.
Conservative chief Kemi Badenoch, who also speaks on the Kuensberg program, gave him support to the Prime Minister on Ukraine, but said it was important to keep the United States engaged.
“We have to make sure that America does not get out of the way, it is in their interest in peace now, if we are all trained in an escalation, America will finally be trained,” she told the BBC.
Badenoch has also repeated his call to the United Kingdom to further increase defense spending, saying that it should reach 3% of national income by the end of this Parliament.
Earlier this week, the PM announced that it would reduce the foreign aid budget to finance an increase in Defense financing at 2.5% national income by 2027, which led to resignation of its Minister of International Development Anneliese Dodds.
This decision was reached after Trump called on NATO US allies to increase defense spending to 5% of their respective national income.
France spends 2.1% for the defense and has undertaken to double by 2030.
Sir Keir has urged all European nations to review their defense budgets, saying: “Generally, Europe must do more in its defense and safety and that is why I have said that we have to increase spending, we have to increase the capacity.
Asked to explain what a “European coalition of the will”, he said: “We must be clear what a European security guarantee would look like (in Ukraine).
“We have to find these countries in Europe which are ready to be a little more avant-garde.”
He said that the United Kingdom and France directed reflection on this subject but added: “The more there is, the better.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was welcomed in Downing Street by the PM which was quickly the summit, which Sir Keir said they were approaching “with a very similar state of mind”.
Meloni spoke to Downing Street journalists, saying: “We are all very committed about a goal that we all want to achieve, which is a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.
“I think it is very, very important to avoid the risk that the West is divided and I think that on this United Kingdom and Italy can play an important role in the construction of bridges.”