Starmer still sucking up to Trump in Arctic aircraft carrier pledge

Keir Starmer has told the Munich Security Conference that he’ll send the navy’s aircraft carrier group to the Arctic. The move is meant to appease US president Donald Trump who recently threatened to annex Greenland. In his speech on 14 February Starmer said:

I can announce today that the UK will deploy our Carrier Strike Group to the North Atlantic and the High North this year led by HMS Prince of Wales, operating alongside the US, Canada and other NATO allies in a powerful show of our commitment to Euro-Atlantic security.

Starmer also said he would increase the number of Royal Marines in Norway, alongside other measures:

Doubling our deployment of British commandos in the Arctic. Taking control of NATO’s Atlantic and Northern Command in Norfolk, Virginia. And transforming our Royal Navy by striking the biggest warship deal in British history with Norway.

You can listen to the full speech here:

Right on cue, defence minister Al Carns  – a former marine and rumoured coup candidate for Labour leadership – appeared 200 miles above the Arctic Circle:

It remains to be seen whether any of this will appease Donald Trump. So far in 2026, Trump has struck Venezuela, threatened various countries, and is amassing naval forces within striking distance of Iran.

Yet being a minion to US authority seems to be Starmer’s default response.

Starmer bowing to US

The US in turning inwards. In line with it’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS), the US focus in increasingly on the Western hemisphere. US secretary of state Marco Rubio told the conference Europe has to stand up for itself now:

We want Europe to be strong.  We believe that Europe must survive, because the two great wars of the last century serve for us as history’s constant reminder that ultimately, our destiny is and will always be intertwined with yours, because we know because we know that the fate of Europe will never be irrelevant to our own.

He also lamented the imagined civilisational decay described in the NSS:

Controlling who and how many people enter our countries, this is not an expression of xenophobia.  It is not hate.  It is a fundamental act of national sovereignty… It is an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilization itself.

Trump appeared to back off annexing Greenland. Or rather he appeared to back off using force to do so. Speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on 21 January, he said:

We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won’t do that.

I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland.

Starmer can’t get a break at the moment. And, in fairness, it’s entirely his own fault. He is under fire at home over disgraced Labour grandee Peter Mandelson’s links to dead child rapist and power broker Jeffrey Epstein. He may not last much longer. Yet on what passes for a UK foreign policy – i.e., sucking up to Donald Trump – he has been remarkably consistent.

Featured image via the Canary