Breach of protocol
In a potential breach of diplomatic protocol, Macron was the first world leader to phone Starmer and congratulate him as the U.K. election results became clear — before he had officially been appointed prime minister. The pair spoke again the following day once the British leader had entered Downing Street.
Their first bilateral after the election was at the NATO summit in Washington the following week, during which Macron shared a photo of the pair in a warm embrace. And on the night after the Blenheim Palace summit, birthplace of Winston Churchill, the pair spoke one-on-one again before sitting down to a posh dinner together in the opulent surroundings.
The chemistry between the two appeared warm on a stroll through the ornate water terraces of Blenheim, out of earshot of the cameras. Both were smiling, as Macron made occasional hand gestures to punctuate his points. For a few minutes the pair sat on a stone bench, chatting privately.
At a press conference in the late afternoon, Macron told POLITICO his new counterpart had ushered in a “new momentum for your political lives and domestic politics.” The sentiment echoed the insurgent political movement Macron formed in 2022: “En Marche,” now renamed “Renaissance.”
According to U.K. officials at Blenheim, the summit’s spotlight was shared between Starmer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That may have left Macron pondering whether he could be handing over the centrist powerbroker baton in Europe.
“Macron must look at Starmer and wonder what might have been,” said Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank. “From nowhere, the Brits — long viewed by Europe’s elite as a basket case — have emerged as putative leaders of the continent’s centrist tendencies.”