No sooner will our new Government have been formed after today’s general election than it will find itself facing intense scrutiny over its likely approach to the many global challenges that lie ahead.

First stop for the newly-elected prime minister will be a visit to Washington DC on Tuesday to attend the 75th anniversary celebrations for the creation of Nato, the transatlantic partnership in whose creation Britain played a pivotal role. While Joe Biden will inevitably attract much attention in the wake of his faltering performance in his debate with Donald Trump, there will also be great interest in how the new British government intends to address a range of major issues.

Other leaders of the 32-member alliance will be keen to divine its position on pressing issues such as the war in Ukraine, the Gaza conflict, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and China’s increasingly aggressive posture.

During Rishi Sunak’s premiership, the British position has remained broadly consistent, even if it is generally acknowledged within Whitehall that playing the global statesman has never been Sunak’s strongest suit. Supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia, insisting on Israel’s right to self-defence after the October 7 attacks, and confronting the aggressive instincts of authoritarian regimes those in like Iran and China have been the central pillars of British policy since Sunak took office.

Unlike Boris Johnson, though, whose emphatic leadership on the Ukraine issue helped to rally Western support for Kyiv, Sunak has preferred to concentrate on key domestic issues, an approach that has resulted in a noticeable decline in Britain’s status as a major world power. Maintaining British influence in world affairs is, after all, a vital prerequisite for justifying the UK’s privileged position as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

Whether Britain will experience a revival in its global standing with the formation of the next government will depend on its willingness to address a wide range of national security issues, especially if Sir Keir Starmer replaces Sunak as prime minister.

Throughout the election campaign, Starmer has gone out of his way to stress that Labour has moved on from the anti-American, anti-Nato, pro-nuclear disarmament, anti-Israel stance that defined the Jeremy Corbyn era. Starmer’s desperation to promote his party’s rediscovered pro-Nato, pro-nuclear deterrence credentials was very much in evidence last weekend in his intemperate response to accusations by Johnny Mercer, the Conservatives’ combative veterans minister, that voting Labour “would put us all in danger”.

Denouncing Mercer’s comments as “desperate stuff”, Starmer stressed that a Labour government had been in power when Britain signed the Washington Treaty in 1949 formalising its Nato membership, and that his party was committed to the construction of four new nuclear submarines to maintain the nuclear deterrent for decades to come.

Even so, lingering suspicions remain that a Labour government could pursue radically different policies on national security issues, especially if it succeeds in winning a super-majority. Starmer himself has given clear signals that his priorities will be to strengthen relations with Europe and the “global south”, the loose collection of countries that want to challenge the West’s dominance. Boosting climate change cooperation is another fanciful Starmer conceit, one that will remain unattainable so long as anti-Western, autocratic regimes such as Russia and China maintain their commitment to fossil fuels.

As for Labour’s commitment to the nuclear deterrent, this was somewhat undermined by deputy leader Angela Rayner’s recent musings on the subject when she declared her main interest was in multilateral nuclear disarmament. This is similarly unrealistic so long as the likes of Russia, China and Iran are focused on developing their nuclear arsenals.

Then there is David Lammy, Labour’s maverick shadow foreign spokesman, who, having joined Rayner in voting against the renewal of Trident in 2016, is a leading candidate to take up residence in King Charles Street next week if Starmer wins the election. Lammy’s predilection for making gaffes, such as describing former US president Donald Trump as a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”, has seen him keep a low profile during the campaign for fear of alienating potential Labour voters.

This has not stopped him from persisting with controversial declarations, such as saying Britain would comply with an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes. Official UK policy is to challenge the court’s move.

Starmer’s refusal to confirm that Lammy is in the running to be our next foreign secretary suggests the Labour leader is having second thoughts about the appointment, a consideration that assumes even greater significance if Trump is re-elected US president in November.

If the new British government has any genuine intention of reviving our status as a leading world power, at the very least it requires politicians who can work with our allies, instead of antagonising them.