Sunak’s mistake on D-Day shows his political incompetence

Rishi Sunak’s D-Day disaster in Normandy last week, the defining moment of this dismal funeral of a Tory election, summed up so much that has gone wrong since the 2016 Brexit referendum.

For it turns out that Sunak’s absence from the main commemoration event with Biden, Macron and Scholz was not a misguided mistake caused by competing electoral pressures. As he said in his subsequent apology, he never intended to be present at what Number 10 officials tellingly dubbed “the French event”. His decision to leave Normandy after a commemoration at the British D-Day Memorial near Gold Beach was made weeks ago, well before the election was called.

From the start, the “French event” had been considered “optional”, said the head of Number 10, as if it were a trip to the shops rather than one of the most symbolic gatherings of Western leaders of this decade – and the last with veterans of the Normandy landings 80 years ago. Part of the symbolism was the presence of Ukrainian leader Zelensky, but also the absence of Ukrainian invader Putin. Stalin was an uneasy ally against Hitler in 1944, and immediately after Germany’s defeat he became a threat to European freedom and democracy. Putin is in the same situation today.

Putin’s absence last week was forced, Sunak’s voluntary. Each in their own way condemned their relationship with democratic Europe.

What made the unthinkable thinkable in Sunak’s decision-making?

Sunak doesn’t like foreign affairs much and he puts continental Europe in the “foreign” category. The same goes for Brexit, which partly explains the return of David Cameron. He sees most European meetings and travel as a distraction, although a distraction from what is unclear since he has not particularly reached out domestically. It’s time to have a Prime Minister who actually does the job of representing Britain abroad, particularly in Europe. And someone who could speak positively about trade and travel between Britain and Europe.

Particularly chronic is the Brexit idea that engagement with France and Germany has become “optional” rather than an absolute necessity to maintain peace and boost prosperity. So it is with the Brexit media’s jubilation over the gains made by the far right in last week’s European elections. The truth is that the rise of extremism on the European continent poses a further threat to European stability and a danger to Britain. We must be deeply engaged, not largely disengaged.

The strange thing about Sunak’s no-show in Normandy is that he snubbed the US as well as France and Germany. Because the rest of the ruling Conservative Party remained Atlanticist after Brexit, continuing to support NATO and, more recently, its contribution to Ukraine. The Conservatives – unlike Farage – never became completely isolationist after Brexit. Johnson praised Churchill, although lacking the war leader’s postwar enthusiasm for a “kind of United States of Europe.”

Which makes Sunak’s absence from a military commemoration of Britain’s contribution to European liberation a far worse symbol than actual UK policy. Maybe Sunak is just not very good at politics.