‘Close working with Germany’s SPD hints at Labour’s future foreign policy aims’

It’s been a pretty desperate few years in relations between the UK and Germany, even though, of course, friction in recent decades is far from unknown: the Iraq war set respective centre-left-led governments at odds and unpicked what had been a promising seam of co-operation, as Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder sought to position themselves as modernisers of social democracy. 

Germany feels terrific sadness over Brexit: membership of multilateral organisations, notably the EU, belongs to the country’s DNA. Brexit negotiations were bruising, and the UK’s unfortunate attempts to divide EU member states and conquer achieved nothing but irritation (“Never force Germany to choose between the UK and the EU, it will always choose the EU,” as one wise friend observed to me).

A strong sense of the UK acting in bad faith over the Northern Ireland protocol, signing something it had no intention of adhering to, made matters worse (sticking to international rules is another thing Germany understandably values). 

The ‘vaccine wars‘ episode was bruising, and all the while German opinion-formers have kept up with the British press, notably the Guardian, and taken in a seam of domestic media commentary highlighting the personal and democratic failings of Boris Johnson’s government. Annette Dittert’s note entitled The Politics of Lies: Boris Johnson and the erosion of the rule of law was a classic of its genre. Bear in mind Dittert was the London correspondent of Germany’s equivalent of the BBC, not a maverick commentator. 

Under the Truss administration, anger towards the UK government in Berlin turned to eye-rolling and amusement – almost worse.

The UK’s bilateral relationship with Germany needs to be reset

So it’s no surprise that in Berlin there is a real appetite to see political change in the UK – and an expectation that it will come (indeed, a lack of understanding of the foibles of the UK’s electoral system means a Labour victory is being taken for granted). 

Of course, Germany’s government and specifically Labour’s sister party, the SPD of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have their own challenges, with 77% of German dissatisfied at the government’s performance and the SPD not only polling behind the centre-right CDU/CSU but also the far right AfD. 

The Ukraine war has proven really hard for Germany, driving energy price rises but also heralding the need for a radical shift in its previously accommodating foreign policy towards Russia. 

Domestic and international critics (notably in neighbouring Poland) have tended to argue that Scholz’s declaration of a “watershed moment” in foreign and defence policy has fallen far short of its declared aims, though figures from the UK – from both the Labour and Tory sides – have been more appreciative, knowing just how hard it is to pivot from previously deeply embedded positions.

This context enhances the desire for co-operation. There is a need to reset a key bilateral relationship (for each country). There is the possibility of centre-left-led governments in both cases for the first time in nearly two decades, in the context of war in Europe and of shared economic challenges deriving from the energy crisis, the legacy of the Covid pandemic and decades of underinvestment in services (in Germany, key infrastructure has been neglected, while in the UK, the entire public sector is in dire straits).

If the US presidential election next year leads to a Trump or Trump-like winner, that push for co-operation will grow stronger as the White House disengages from Europe.

Labour has a strong relationship with Germany’s ruling SPD

The good news in all of this is that, between Labour and the SPD, there is co-operation aplenty. Shadow ministers have been regular visitors to Berlin, and a steady stream of SPD parliamentarians has come to London, the wheels oiled by the SPD-linked Friedrich Ebert Foundation. 

At the forefront of these efforts has been the shadow defence team, who worked on an impressive blueprint for a UK-German defence and security partnership, launched in May. They have benefited in this by ruling in a UK-EU security pact, an idea of obvious merit but discarded for reasons of bizarre Brexiteer theology by the Johnson administration. 

More recently, Germany’s armed forces commissioner, Eva Högl, visited London, and John Healey trumpeted a commitment by Labour to create an equivalent role: an explicit, positive example of policy learning. What is important here is not just the context or the pledges, though. There is real personal chemistry between Labour politicians like Healey and their German opposite numbers.

The UK will host the ‘European Political Community’ (President Macron’s initiative to bring together Europe’s leaders from inside and outside the EU) in 2024. Depending on the timing of the general election, this could be an important early opportunity for the UK to reset its European relationships, and the rapport between leading UK and German figures would be crucial in making the most of it.

So work like the defence co-operation proposal developed by Labour and the SPD is important in its own terms, offering pragmatic suggestions for the partnership between two key allies at a critical juncture. But it is also an illustration of the strength of Labour-SPD relations right now and a powerful pointer of where a future Labour government might take its key bilateral relationships.