The Commons: How City Mayors Are Building Their Own Foreign Policies
When Keir Starmer arrived at the White House back in the summer, it was all smiles and pleasantries, as the US and UK leaders discussed the crisis in Ukraine and Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to London. One exchange perhaps stood out as a bit of an awkward moment, however, when Trump derided the current Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan – someone whom Starmer then had to point out was a friend of his. Khan came up again when Trump finally made his journey to London in September, Trump calling him a “terrible mayor,” who wanted to impose Sharia law.
This may well have raised a few eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic. Whilst Khan is a household name in the UK, he remains someone whose authority begins and ends with London, at least in theory. Even there, as pointed out by Deputy Mayor Howard Dawber, “compared with the mayor of New York, we’ve got 10% of the power and 10% of the money.”
That being said, Khan has been increasingly active on the world stage in recent years. In the same month that Starmer and Trump met at the White House, Khan was also flying out to Africa to host what had been described as a “historic” trade mission with three separate nations.
In fact, over the past decade, he and other regional leaders across the UK have themselves been taking the lead in diplomatic efforts with their counterparts in other countries. These kinds of summits may be emerging to be just as important as any meetings between Presidents or Prime Ministers.
Political analysts have increasingly drawn attention to what they describe as ‘paradiplomacy’, where regional and city authorities will interact and make agreements with other cities around the world, without involvement from their respective governments – even establishing their own ‘proto-foreign policies’.
This is perhaps an inevitable result of globalization, as major cities continue to attract business and investment from around the world. In 2016, the same year that Khan was elected, business leader Rodrigo Tavares argued that this was only natural in a world where a city like New York boasts a higher GDP than that of the whole of Spain.
“Mayors and governors have gone a long way towards exercising political and economic power globally,” Tavares claimed. “The international activism of cities and states is rapidly growing across the world, discreetly transforming diplomatic practices and the delivery of public services.”
This is not an entirely new phenomenon. Cities like London have always been at the heart of international trade and finance. It’s worth remembering, however, that positions such as the Mayor of London – or, in the North of England, the Mayor of Manchester- are in fact relatively new in a country with a strong tradition historically of top-down government from Westminster. These posts were first introduced from the 1990s onwards, as the governments of Tony Blair and, later, David Cameron, attempted to devolve power to regions of the UK that had long argued for greater autonomy.
In the years since, however, some have argued that figures like Khan have gone beyond their remit of attracting foreign business and investment and have instead established positions on wider political matters in ways that genuinely constitute an independent foreign policy.
This had been commented on after Khan was first elected, when the Labour Mayor drew a sharp dividing line between himself and the Conservative government over the Brexit referendum. Khan, who had campaigned on a message of global interconnection, went on to be an outspoken critic of Brexit, using the hashtag #LondonIsOpen, to position London as a global city that remained open to business, “and to the world.”
Whilst the UK government attempted to find a deal on which it could withdraw from the EU, Khan visited numerous European capitals, stating that “even if the UK leaves the EU, we will remain part of the European family.” Khan not only publicly supported a second referendum, but also directly held meetings and summits with MEPs and other European Mayors to try and retain London’s place as a city at the heart of Europe, and even some form of Associate Citizenship for Londoners and other UK nationals.
Whilst some may have criticized the Mayor of London getting so involved in this kind of national debate, Khan asserted that “I wouldn’t be doing my job representing the interests of Londoners if I didn’t stand up now and say that it’s time to think again about how we take this crucial decision for the future of our country – and the futures of our children and grandchildren.”
In the period since Brexit, Khan has continued to be just as active in managing major international summits and climate accords. In 2021, he was elected as Chair of the C40 Cities Network, which has been aiming to bring together over 100 cities across the world to lead a united front on issues around climate change. In this role, he helped take the lead in the Network’s C40 World Mayors Summit, which convened in Rio earlier this week, intending to deliver “practical, urgent solutions to the climate crisis.”
This comes just four months after his trade mission to Africa, when he visited Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa as part of an effort to help boost trade and growth, taking an important role in promoting trade worth £50 billion.
For a country that has struggled to find new trading partners in the wake of Brexit and increased tensions with both China and the US, the prospect of Mayors and Regional leaders finding new routes for integration is an incredibly exciting one. This is perhaps particularly the case for those regions outside of London. Figures like Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester, have frequently spoken about the need for investment throughout the whole of the UK, not just London and the South, and for cities like Manchester to be on an equal footing internationally. His work in promoting Greater Manchester through transnational business and policy exchanges has helped to attract investment and strengthen the region’s visibility.
But whilst this may allow for a greater spotlight for some, the prospect of UK cities simply going their own way may have important implications for the authority of central government. As shown in Khan’s championing of Remain, or in how Andy Burnham railed against the Conservative government’s lockdown measures, the potential for conflict with Westminster is very real.
This growing influence of regional leaders “exists within a legal grey area,” Oliver Morrisey, Director of Empower Wills & Estate Lawyers, told Modern Treatise. They do not have the power to make their own treaties, but can nevertheless influence foreign relations directly or undermine foreign policy coherence.
This, ironically, is an issue that may have greater salience now that figures like Burnham and Khan, both representing the Labour Party, find themselves working with a Labour government. Whether this allows for a smoother relationship going forward will remain to be seen.
