Keir Starmer has denied that his choice to herald a retirement age of 80 for the Home of Lords means he believes Joe Biden ought to stand down as US president.
Forward of his first bilateral talks with Biden on the White Home, the UK prime minister mentioned the “major driver” for bringing in a retirement age for friends was the scale of the second chamber.
“The easy truth is that our Home of Lords is huge. It’s the second greatest political chamber on the earth. I believe it’s solely the Chinese language who’ve an even bigger political chamber than our Home of Lords. Now we have to cut back it.
“That’s the major driver of the retirement at 80. You may see why that must be achieved. We’ve received 800-plus members of the Lords, it’s just too huge. We have to scale back it.
“So it doesn’t mirror on how different elected representatives are chosen in different international locations, it’s to do with the scale of the Home of Lords.”
After Biden’s disastrous efficiency in his first debate in opposition to Donald Trump boosted considerations about his age and health for workplace, the president has confronted calls to face down because the Democratic nominee this November.
The bilateral talks got here as Starmer admitted that his ministers might want to use the Nato summit in Washington to assist reset the UK’s relationship with European neighbours after years of tensions because of Brexit.
The prime minister has been joined on his first abroad journey by Nick Thomas-Symonds, who has been given the newly created job of European relations minister, in addition to the defence and international secretaries.
Starmer’s administration desires to restore the harm to relations with Europe brought on by the Brexit wrangles and strike a greater take care of the EU on points together with safety and commerce.
“It has supplied a extremely vital window of alternative for me and my group … to strengthen our relationships with numerous Nato leaders and others clearly which are there, together with EU leaders,” Starmer instructed reporters on the aircraft to Washington.
“I need to be sure we take full benefit of this chance. These are conferences that might most likely take months and months for us to slot in as a group, if we weren’t benefiting from this summit.
“The central function is clearly all about Nato, however it’s a essential alternative to strengthen these relations.”
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The Guardian revealed this week that Labour is in search of a sweeping joint declaration with the EU to usher in a wide-ranging safety pact protecting defence, power, the local weather disaster, pandemics and even unlawful migration.
“That is actually vital to us. I do suppose there’s scope for a major enhancing of our defence and safety relationship with the EU,” Starmer mentioned.
“That is complementary with Nato. Nato remains to be the cornerstone of defence in Europe and our strategy on defence has all the time been Nato first. I do see scope for complementing that. That’s the reason we’re desirous to advance the defence and safety pact or settlement with the EU.”
The UK is internet hosting about 50 leaders from throughout Europe subsequent week on the fourth assembly of the European Political Neighborhood at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill.
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