Burnham Visits Merz: Brexit Is Done, the Drones Came Anyway

Andy Burnham arrived in Berlin on Thursday for his first official visit to Germany as UK Prime Minister. With Chancellor Friedrich Merz he agreed closer cooperation against hybrid threats: more intelligence sharing, better protection of critical infrastructure and joint action against sabotage and cyberattacks. The two also exchanged the ratification instruments for the Kensington Treaty, the 2025 Anglo-German friendship treaty, which is now in force. The backdrop includes a drone incident at Leipzig/Halle Airport in August that Berlin blames on Russia.

Ten years after the referendum, both sides are discovering that hybrid attacks take little interest in referendums. You can leave a union, criticise its institutions and then find that drones over Saxony-Anhalt do not stop at passport control.

Britain left the EU. It did not, unfortunately, leave Europe's threat landscape.

Burnham also said the UK was open to Germany joining the GCAP fighter jet programme with Italy and Japan; Berlin has not decided. Merz promised to do everything he could to bring Britain closer to the EU, with a UK-EU summit due towards the end of the year. Until then, in security terms the two have long since moved back in together. They just still have separate names on the doorbell.