The Donald Trump charm offensive began even before he returned to the White House. Weeks before the 2024 presidential election, Sir Keir Starmer and his team had dinner with the maverick Republican at Trump Tower in New York. David Lammy, then the foreign secretary, gushed over how “gracious” his host was – boasting about his generous portion of chicken.
Since Trump came back to power, the Prime Minister has done his best to stick close. He has largely avoided contradicting him even where they profoundly disagree, for example on the President’s repeated threats that he would somehow take over Canada.
Now the “Trump whisperer” strategy looks like it may be falling apart. The global row over Greenland showed there were limits to how far Starmer could go in adhering to the White House line – and war in the Middle East has created what looks like a serious rift, because of the UK’s refusal to join the initial bombing raids on Iran.
Trump has started lashing out at the Prime Minister even when not provoked, comparing him unfavourably with Winston Churchill and slamming his “woke island” deal to hand sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The right is gleeful. Anti-Labour newspapers accuse Starmer of making Britain less safe, while Nigel Farage said the so-called “special relationship” was now “without doubt the worst it’s been for almost exactly 70 years” – since the Suez crisis of 1956.
It is no doubt chastening for the Prime Minister to be reminded in such brutal fashion that the strategy he painstakingly forged has real limits. But his rift with Trump, as long as it remains in the realm of rhetoric rather than a hard policy reversal, looks like it could do more good than bad for Labour.
Reform UK may lavish praise on the President, with the Conservatives also on Trump’s side when it comes to the Iran war, but they do not speak for the majority of voters on this. Just 16 per cent of Britons say they are fans of Trump with 81 per cent disapproving of him, according to YouGov – making him one of the few politicians less popular than Starmer himself. On the specific issue of the current conflict, the UK public is sceptical: 28 per cent back America’s strikes on Iran while 49 per cent oppose them.
The No 10 team is confident that Starmer is on the same side as voters on this topic. And, just as importantly in the short term, he is on the same side as the Labour MPs who hold his future in their hands. Backbenchers have been uncomfortable with the Government’s decision to hug Trump so close. At times, they have been ordered not to say anything that could be construed as critical of the President – including, for example, at the session of Prime Minister’s Questions which took place on the day he was re-elected.
But few want Starmer to take a fully oppositional stance, denouncing the Iran strikes and refusing any involvement even in defending allies from Tehran’s retaliation: just a handful are expected to back a bill, tabled by Jeremy Corbyn, which would limit the US’s use of British military bases.
The UK Government still maintains deeper ties with its America than any other European ally – even now, EU ministers are calling up their British counterparts to ask for help dealing with the Trump administration on issues such as tariffs, I am told. And the Prime Minister is working with the US on defensive operations even as he refuses to give the President carte blanche to deploy British assets against Iran.
In Wednesday’s session of PMQs, Starmer robustly defended his approach. “Hanging on to President Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship in action,” he insisted. When the White House cannot seem to explain exactly what its aims in Iran actually are, it is not hard to understand why the UK Government is not writing a blank cheque to join this war.
The British right once understood that it is up to our politicians, and our people, to set the policy of this country. The outrage at Barack Obama’s attempts to dissuade voters from backing Brexit in 2016 was intense. This time around, many of Starmer’s opponents think that his scrap with Trump is utterly damning for the Prime Minister. It might well turn out to be the first lucky break in a while.
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