Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Starmer?

An air of panic has hovered over today’s hastily arranged security summit for Europe’s leaders in Paris. They have been trying to muster a response to the US’s decision to exclude Europe from negotiations with Russia over the end of the Ukraine war and, above all, to President Trump’s insistence that European nations start taking responsibility for their continent’s security.

Cometh the hour, cometh… Keir Starmer? The British PM has seemingly seized on the disorientation now gripping Europe’s political elites to pose as something akin to a leader. He’s certainly been talking tough on Russia. Writing in the Telegraph today, Starmer declared that we are ‘facing a once-in-a-generation moment for the collective security of our continent’. He added that the challenge of securing Ukraine against future Russian aggression, if and when any ceasefire is agreed, ‘is existential for Europe as a whole’.

Then came Starmer’s faux-Churchillian moment. He stated that he would be willing to put ‘our troops on the ground if necessary’. He said that he feels ‘very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way’, but ‘helping to guarantee Ukraine’s security is helping to guarantee the security of our continent, and the security of this country’.

French president Emmanuel Macron is apparently supportive of the idea, and is equally keen on despatching his own nation’s forces to Ukraine. Other European leaders, less so. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has pledged to continue military, financial and humanitarian aid, but has already ruled out sending troops.

For Starmer to blunder his way into this new position on Ukraine, without much debate either within his own party or the nation at large, is outrageous. You do not have to be a Putin apologist to wonder if this is a sensible move for Ukraine or Britain, given Russia’s long-standing opposition to Western forces on its western borders.

But typical of European politicians’ flailing over Ukraine in recent days, Starmer’s plan is delusional as much as anything else. The rights and wrongs of Britain stationing troops on the eastern fringes of Europe is beside the point. The truth is that even if the British state was serious about committing itself militarily to securing Ukraine against Russia’s war machine, it simply wouldn’t be able to – even with support from Macron’s France.

Just to put things into a bit of perspective, Russia’s military currently comprises about 1.3million active-duty personnel, a number that Putin insists is set to increase by nearly 200,000 over the next few years. By contrast, Britain’s military consists of just under 150,000 staff. The British Army itself, which presumably would form the bedrock of any Ukraine mission, now numbers little over 75,000 soldiers, a third less than it had even just two decades ago. Last autumn, defence secretary John Healey confirmed that soldier numbers will soon fall below 70,000 for the first time since before the Napoleonic Wars. The Royal Air Force and the British Navy are faring little better. Indeed, such is the shortage of sailors in particular that the navy has had to mothball two warships.

So Starmer can make all the grand pledges he wants. He can talk solemnly of putting British soldiers’ lives on the line, of ‘once in a generation’ moments, of fighting for the future of Europe. He can play the world leader, play up to Trump. But as it stands, it’s all so much hot air.

Perhaps that’s all it’s meant to be – a set of rhetorical gestures designed to make Starmer look more substantial than he really is. After all, as Lord Dannatt, former head of the British Army, told the BBC today: ‘We haven’t got the numbers and we haven’t got the equipment to put a large force on to the ground for an extended period of time.’ At this point, the armed forces wouldn’t be able to defend the UK from foreign aggression, let alone Ukraine.

Starmer’s government, in power for just seven or so months, is not responsible for the years-long decline of the British armed forces. Yet there is little indication that it is serious about reversing that descent. Indeed, while the PM is flexing Britain’s imagined military muscle in Paris this week, his own government continues to insist that defence spending will not rise above the planned increase to 2.5 per cent of GDP. Even then, over a third of the defence budget will be spent simply on maintaining and replacing Britain’s nuclear deterrent. It is not going to free up vast swathes of money for a Ukraine mission.

Yet, despite all this, Keir Starmer still expects the world to believe that Britain is about to secure Ukraine and Europe against future Russian aggression. Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Starmer?

Tim Black is a spiked columnist.