The Blairite charmer who could save the UK from Trump ...Middle East

Keir Starmer must make a decision. When he appoints Britain’s next ambassador to Washington, what’s his key ask of Donald Trump?

Following Friday’s GDP figures, which revealed a fourth month of UK economic stagnation, does the Prime Minister prioritise the financial and trade relationship with the US?

Or does he instead put focus on foreign affairs and slot in a foreign policy expert to persuade a US administration tiring of Ukraine that the country should remain top of its to-do list? Or to reassure the administration that Britain is not suffering – as America’s new National Security Strategy would have it – of “civilisational erasure” from excessive migration?

Starmer will be focused on getting that balance right next week when choosing who replaces Lord Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador in Washington.

Mandelson was sacked in September over his links to the late paedophile financier, Jeffrey Epstein. Emails from 2006-10 show Mandelson offering him support, including allegedly telling Epstein he was “here whenever you need” and urging him to “fight for early release” from prison.

Government insiders now anticipate the ambassadorship will be handed to Varun Chandra, No 10’s 41-year-old business adviser with a reputation in Whitehall as a Trump whisperer.

“No 10 is now talking about who has the business skills to replace him at No 10 as his appointment to Washington is seen as a done deal,” a minister told The i Paper.

A diplomatic source said an announcement on the appointment is widely expected next week.

But a No 10 source insisted the selection process continues, adding they have not chosen any candidate yet but expect Starmer to decide soon.

On paper, Chandra’s current job is to oversee business outreach, persuading financiers to invest in the UK and reassure flighty bond dealers that Starmer and Rachel Reeves are a safe pair of hands. But Chandra also took a central role in securing a trade deal with Washington earlier this year.

While Mandelson had led diplomatic efforts to secure carve-outs for Britain on trade tariffs, Chandra also had his own channels into the Maga-dominated Washington circuit. He was in regular contact with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and helped secure the deal which lowered baseline tariffs on British exports to 10 per cent and which was the first agreement signed by Trump.

Chandra has enjoyed a stellar career. He hails from South Shields, where his Indian parents moved before he was born. His father was raised in poverty but became a doctor and transferred to the NHS. The son attended the fee-paying Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, Oxford University and briefly worked for Lehman Brothers and much later as boss of the secretive international advisory firm, Hakluyt.

But it was Tony Blair who taught Chandra his politics. Then in his twenties, Chandra helped the former prime minister set up his first private advisory firm, Tony Blair Associates, just after he left office in 2008, working alongside Blair’s former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell. As a political apprentice, Chandra spent over five years with Blair meeting presidents, prime ministers and billionaires.

If Chandra, as expected by many in Whitehall, wins the prize Washington posting, it will show the continuing influence of the former prime minister. Blair and Chandra both deploy a brand of charm-driven networking, ranging from business to diplomacy and back again, distinct from Trump’s transactional style.

No 10 is stuffed with Blair-era advisers, including Starmer’s National Security Advisor Powell, who advised the former premier for a decade.

Some in Whitehall also regard the 69-year-old, nicknamed J-Po in No 10, as “the real foreign secretary” because he deals directly with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio over Ukraine and also negotiated the Chagos deal.

Still, there are already connections between Chandra and Sir Oliver Robbins, now the top civil servant at the Foreign Office. They worked together at Hakluyt. Chandra has also impressed diplomats on his own terms.

One of the chief tasks of Washington ambassador will be to woo Trump’s inner circle. If it’s charm you’re looking for, then Chandra is your guy, according to a Government source who has worked alongside him this year.

“I’d be delighted if he gets it; he’s brilliant. He’s smart, charismatic, relentless and kind. He’s really good at what he does and really nice while he does it,” the source told The i Paper.

However, there has also been a rearguard action from the Foreign Office, keen to see one of its own career diplomats rewarded with the plum posting in Washington rather than another political selection. Mandelson was a Blair-era political appointee, some point out, and look how that turned out. The Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has been pushing for a career diplomat to win the appointment.

Amid a Foreign Office reorganisation – for which read redundancy programme – to absorb the cuts to the foreign aid budget, morale in King Charles Street is already low.

The diplomatic corps has been pushing both Christian Turner, the British permanent representative to the United Nations in New York, and Nigel Casey, Britain’s representative in Russia.

Turner is seen as the biggest threat to Chandra for the role, with a variety of senior postings, including as high commissioner to Pakistan, a job he held from 2019 to 2023. He was also the first secretary in the British embassy in Washington under Blair.

After the embarrassment surrounding Mandelson’s exit, some diplomatic sources argue a Civil Service appointment would ensure a safe pair of hands at the embassy and avoid the gamble of another political choice.

Whoever wins the posting is going to have to work fast. Trump, looking ahead to the patriotic wave celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence next year and the mid-terms in November, has a limited window for international bickering over Ukraine and limited capacity to focus on the residual details of trade deals.

The UK, alongside its European allies, is dealing with a once-in-a-generation shift in US thinking. Trump has consistently said Europe is weak because of low military spending and its reliance on US security.

But his criticism has become much more forceful in his second term, stoked by the input of Vice President JD Vance, who paints Europe as a declining liberal outpost in a worldwide cultural conflict between nationalists defending their homeland from an immigrant “invasion” and globalists who can’t see the danger.

Westminster’s political class, absorbed in the exceptionalist fantasy of the “special relationship”, has been guilty of thinking that when Trump attacks Europe, he doesn’t really mean Britain.

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Meanwhile, there is no doubting Starmer’s commitment to Ukraine; he’s spent many hours developing the “coalition of the willing” European alliance to replace Trump’s vanishing support. But Labour’s fortunes hang on economic growth, not just a victory against Vladimir Putin.

Starmer may well decide that economic growth has to come first. There are still outstanding elements of a trade deal the next ambassador will have to negotiate with the Americans. Oversize tariffs on medium- and heavy-duty vehicle exports for one. Engaging with US concerns on steel imports from China is another. Resisting pressure to water down AI legislation is a third.

Whichever candidate Starmer chooses as our man in Washington, he’s going to have his work cut out.

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