Downing Street has defended Keir Starmer’s foreign trips amid rising voter anger at the amount of time he spends abroad.
The prime minister is currently at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – his 16th overseas visit since he entered No.10 just over four months ago.
Starmer’s globetrotting has seen him travel to America and Berlin three times and Paris twice, as well as Dublin, Budapest, Azerbaijan, Brussels, Italy and Samoa.
According to research by The Guardian, he has been abroad for 26 days since becoming PM.
At the same time, Labour’s poll ratings, and the PM’s own approval numbers, have plummeted.
One voter in Scunthorpe told a focus group run by the More in Common think-tank: “I would like to see Labour get a hold and just start thinking about the people of the country, because you have seen a lot of these politicians in the first hundred days off in other countries.
“You’re thinking you need to focus more on this country and get this country sorted instead of on this ‘global stage’ that they’ve been banging on about.
“Start looking at your own country and what’s affecting the people here.”
HuffPost UK has been told that senior figures in Downing Street have also been concerned at the amount of time the prime minister has spent outside the UK since Labour’s election victory on July 4.
Luke Tryl, executive director of More in Common UK, told HuffPost UK: “The public have started to notice that Starmer is spending a lot of time abroad and bring it up spontaneously in focus groups.
“Clearly that’s part of the prime minister’s job, but the onus then is on the government to explain better how this benefits Britain rather than being a distraction from our domestic woes the public desperately want fixed.”
A spokeswoman for Starmer said: “The prime minister is very clear that international co-operation is key for delivering for the British people.”
