Inside Labour's foreign policy factory

Here are two near-certs. First, Labour will form the next government. Second, it will quickly become one dominated by foreign affairs. Inside the Starmer tent, there has been a lot of intense thinking and preparation for that: beyond it, almost no coverage or interest at all. Around the world, "foreign policy" has become completely interlinked with domestic policy: in gas prices, inflation, migration, climate change, the reverberations of war. The traditional work of foreign secretaries and foreign ministers is being absorbed by the offices of prime ministers and presidents; here, as Labour contends with an age of insecurity, a new…