Former Foreign Secretary David Miliband has been lobbying Sir Keir Starmer’s Downing Street team to become the UK’s ambassador to the US if Peter Mandelson is knocked out of the running.
The Prime Minister is under growing pressure from Donald Trump’s team to drop Lord Mandelson as his candidate, with the president’s team proposing putting serious restrictions on his activities in the US if Starmer insists on pushing ahead with his choice. By doing so, the Americans are hoping to make Mandelson’s position untenable and force Starmer to pick another representative.
The unprecedented diplomatic row risks pushing Starmer into a humiliating climb down if he is forced to pick a name who is acceptable to the US. David Miliband, brother to Cabinet minister Ed Miliband, is currently the head of the International Rescue Committee and based in the US.
Mandelson, a former European trade commissioner, who had been seen by some in government as a wily enough operator to wrangle a Trump presidency, now looks increasingly unlikely to get the role. No date has yet been set for him to start the job.
A source in the Trump team has told The Independent newspaper the incoming president is still minded to reject his credentials when they are presented.
“David Miliband is very keen to be in the line of succession, he really wanted the gig in the first place,” a government insider told The i Paper. “There is chatter they might only allow Peter to accept with conditions which would be untenable.”
David Miliband, brother to Cabinet minister Ed Miliband, is currently the head of the International Rescue Committee and based in the US.Another option would be to extend the term of Karen Pierce, the current ambassador to Washington. She is credited with having a good relationship with the Trump team and organised a meeting between Starmer, current Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the Republicans in New York City in September.
Although Pierce has remained longer than her tour in the US would normally allow, her term could be extended again. “It would be the path of least resistance to keep Karen,” the source added.
In the US the biggest concern remains over Lord Mandelson’s support for close ties with China, fuelled by Rachel Reeves’s recent trip to Beijing. But another motivation might be to embarrass Starmer in retaliation.
The i Paper understands Trump’s team are particularly annoyed that the details of a call between the firebrand Republican and Starmer made it into UK newspapers in early January.
Peter Mandelson’s role as the UK’s ambassador to the US hangs in the balanceTrump apparently became “fixated on the number of birds dying after flying into wind turbines in the US”, while joking that “the coyotes eating the fallen birds were getting so fat” that they “would need to be given weight-loss drugs”, the report in The Times said.
It is highly unusual for details of such a high-level call to leak and Trump’s team are understood to be particularly annoyed as the report gave the impression that Britain was laughing at the incoming president, The i Paper has been told.
Moreover, although Starmer previously glossed over the Trump campaign’s accusation in October that Labour officials volunteering for Kamala Harris’s Democrats amounted to “foreign interference” in the US election, it is understood to be a continuing bone of tension with Trump’s inner circle based in Mar-a-Lago.
Downing Street, The Foreign Office and Miliband’s office were approached for comment.
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