Starmer’s Turkish Gift: A Revolver, a Pact and a Very British Problem

Diplomacy is often a theatre of carefully chosen objects: a book, a pen, a plaque, the sort of thing that can be displayed without raising eyebrows at customs. Recep Tayyip Erdogan opted for something rather more literal. During the NATO summit in Ankara, he gave Sir Keir Starmer a personalised revolver with live ammunition, one of a set of similar gifts presented to the leaders attending the meeting.

The gun bears the British prime minister’s name, which at least spares anyone the trouble of guessing for whom it was intended. It has not been brought back to the United Kingdom and remains with British officials in Turkey. Before any return journey, it is expected to be decommissioned, so that it can no longer fire live ammunition. Turkish export controls were waived for the gift, but British import law still does what British import law does: it gets in the way of symbolism.

Downing Street has not released a photograph of the revolver, perhaps wisely. A live firearm as a diplomatic memento is not the sort of image that tends to improve the mood in Whitehall, especially when the item cannot legally enter the country in its current state. The arrangement leaves Starmer with a present that is at once personalised and unusable, which may qualify as the most honest form of statecraft on offer.

The summit itself produced something more conventional. Starmer signed a defence agreement with Erdogan, intended to facilitate closer intelligence sharing between the two countries. After the meeting, Starmer said he believed the alliance was stronger and more united. He also said the summit had achieved what it set out to achieve: unity, which he described as particularly important given the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran.

For Starmer, the Ankara gathering will be his last major international event after he announced his resignation last month. That gives the episode a slightly final flavour: a departing prime minister leaves a NATO summit with a new security arrangement and a revolver he cannot take home. NATO, meanwhile, continues its familiar habit of mixing solemn declarations with gestures that look, on closer inspection, like they were designed by men who have spent too long in conference rooms and too little time worrying about how all this appears to everyone else.

Written by Thorben Thiede thorben.thiede@alpineweekly.com